The Beautiful Letdown

So before I write my debriefing for the day, I just have to get something off my chest. I saw something today that I have been trying to avoid. Well, if I'm being totally honest, I wasn't really trying to avoid it. I'm not going to say what it was that I saw...but it reminded me of a reality that I have been trying to reshape...trying to escape. Even now, I'm caught in it. Even as I'm thinking about it, this song, The Beautiful Letdown, came to mind:

Click here to play it:
http://www.seeqpod.com/search/?plid=2ae9df605b
...and follow along

It was a beautiful letdown
When I crashed and burned
When I found myself alone
Unknown and hurt
It was a beautiful letdown
The day I knew
That all the riches this world had to offer me
Would never do

In a world full of bitter pain
And bitter doubts
I was trying so hard to fit in
Fit in, until I found out

I don't belong here (I don't belong)
I don't belong here (I don't belong)
I will carry a cross and a song
Where I don't belong
I don't belong

It was a beautiful letdown
When You found me here
Yeah, for once in a rare blue moon
I see everything clear
I'll be a beautiful letdown
That's what I'll forever be
And though it may cost my soul
I'll sing for free

We're still chasing our tails
In the rising sun
In our dark water planet still spinning
In a direction no one wins
No one's won.

See, I don't belong here (I don't belong)
Well, I don't belong here, I don't belong
I will carry a cross
With a song where I don't belong
I don't belong
I don't belong here (I don't belong)
No, I don't belong here, I don't belong
I'm gonna set side
And set sail
For the kingdom come, kingdom come
Your kingdom come
Won't you let me down, yeah
Let my foolish pride forever let me down

Ah, Easy living, you're not much like the name
Easy dying, you look just about the same
Would you please take me off your list
Easy living please c'mon and let me down

We are a beautiful letdown
Painfully uncool
The church of the dropouts
The losers, the sinners, the failures, and the fools
What a beautiful letdown
Are we salt in the wound
Hey, let us sing one true tune

I don't belong here (I don't belong)
It feels like I don't belong here, yeah
It goes like I don't belong here
I don't belong (I don't belong)
Won't you let me down (I don't belong)
C'mon and let me down (I don't belong)
You always let me down (I don't belong)
So glad that I'm let down (I don't belong)
C'mon and let me down (I don't belong)
'Cause I don't belong here
Won't you let me down!


I know what Switchfoot was getting at when they wrote this song. But today, I'm twisting the context a little. It's a sadly poetic reality, when you see the tragedy in beauty; or, in the true case of the Beautiful Letdown - the beauty in tragedy. It's supposed to be a comforting thought, but that's what makes it tragic...because it's not.

Bah! Enough of this melancholy... it's time to go for a run!

-Dizzy in Denver