Janie and I have been sharing my iPod for awhile now (since hers bit the dust).

At first, I approached this arrangement with great trepidation because I was happy and familiar with all of my song choices.  But things have changed.  Janie has uploaded dozens and dozens of songs… songs that I would never have thought to listen to on my little technological music wizard.  But now I listen to her songs while I run, and they have unlocked invisible doors.

One of these doors was thrown wide open while listening to Beyonce’s If I Were A Boy. The first time I heard this song on my iPod, I didn’t even know who the artist was.  But the lyrics grabbed hold of me and brought me back decades.  Song lyrics have that power. I was running along, listening.  And thinking.  And remembering.  It was like I was lifted up and brought back 40 years.  The song is about how boys don’t listen and how they take girls for granted.  It speaks of how boys don’t understand the heart of a girl… and how different it would be if a boy truly understood what it’s like to be a girl.  It is both sweet and sad, and both hopeful and hopeless.

I remembered.  And it occurred to me that if only girls could believe… truly believe… their mothers and grandmothers and women who have gained “boy” wisdom though experience.  Then we wouldn’t need to teach boys.  We would know boys.  And we would know that with love and support, the boy stuff just works itself out.

I remembered.  I remembered being 18… crushed by a hurtful boy.  Waiting by the phone that rarely rang.  Being faithful and constant while being taken for granted.  Putting myself last as he made up the rules as we went along. Feeling that my life was destroyed when he rejected me.

I remembered.  I remembered him telling me that I was fat.  That I should wear more make-up.  That my hair would look better blonde.

I remembered.  I remembered staying home weekend after weekend, hoping for that one call on a Saturday afternoon.  I remembered calling him, and hearing the phone ring and ring and ring.  I remembered his friends sticking up for him when I found that he was seeing another girl.

I remembered my mom telling me that I was young and pretty and there were plenty of boys out there.  Good boys.  Boys who would like me for me… and want to be with me for me.  She told me about boyfriends and heartache, and then my Dad came along and swept her off her feet.  But I didn’t listen to her.  I remembered my Nana telling me all about her boyfriends and heartbreak, and then my grandfather came along and swept her off her feet.  But I didn’t listen to her.

I wished I had listened. Because they were right.  I had so many broken pieces that may have been more easily fixed…

But I stayed home.  Waited.  And thought everything he said was right.  I found a photo of me from that time.  As I look at that girl, I still see the hurt.  The agony of waiting.

The photo was taken in my back yard, and next to me is my brother.  It was another Saturday that I stayed home just in case the phone rang. And as I look back at that girl, I see that I had a kickass body.  I didn’t need make-up.  My hair was just fine. But more important, and something he never considered, was that I had more love to give than he would deserve.  He never even “saw” the inside of me. So why did I listen to this boy?  Why didn’t I listen to my mom and my Nana?  Well, 40 years later songs are still being sung about it.  And girls are still saying about boys, “You don’t care how it hurts.”

Ah… as I was running, I listened to these lyrics.  I remembered that time in my life.  That girl in the photo didn’t understand that the boy was a boy… not a man.  A man would come into my life and he would change everything.  He would bless me beyond anything I could have imagined.  Just as the women in my life knew all along.

The song opened that door from so long ago.  And it made me wish that girls would listen to women. Really, really listen to Moms and grandmothers and sisters and friends.  It would save so much waiting.  Hurt.  And broken places.

A song that someone else uploads onto your iPod can do all this…