Yesterday was the last day of my spring break. Schools will open back up tomorrow, and I’m returning to work. As usual, I wash my hair on Sundays. It was boiling today, so I knew I needed to make my bathroom experience as pleasant as possible. I was in the mood to delight my neighbors with a private concert.

Karaoke Concert in My Bathroom

I went on Spotify and started to queue all the songs I wanted to sing while washing my hair. For whatever reason, I was leaning toward slow rock today. I specifically had Crazy by Aerosmith in mind. I queued about 15 songs and skipped through half of them. Since when have the Backstreet Boys been classified as slow rock? What are you doing, Spotify? Anyway, it’s not that I don’t like them; they just didn’t fit in with what I was going for today.

A Blast From the Past

Whatever song I felt I knew the lyrics to, I selected. Among them was the 1997 anthem by Savage Garden, Truly Madly Deeply. I remember watching their video clip on this micro Panasonic television in my parents and my bedroom as a kid. Back then, I didn’t have my own room. We lived in a ‘cuarto’ at the back of my grandmother’s house. My memory of that period has faded, and that’s logical; it’s been more than 20 years.

Why Can’t They Just Find Each Other?

I remember this yellow-filtered video clip with this woman and man looking for each other desperately, but they couldn’t find each other. After searching for a bit, they kept missing each other. As a little child, I didn’t understand what was happening, but it was the emotions on their faces that had me all anxious. I can see that they started to get frustrated but mostly sad and desperate. I missed some context, too. Did they plan to meet somewhere? If so, what went wrong that it got to a point where they were cluelessly roaming through the streets of Paris looking for each other?

Was one late, and the other one thought they got lost and felt the necessity to start looking around for them? I would really love to know more about both of their thought process. According to Wikipedia (yes, I know it’s not a reliable source, but I’m not about to start a scientific research for the sake of one song, or should I?) these two lovebirds got separated by circumstances. Whatever that means.

Lost, Just Lost

I’ve never been to Paris, so I can’t relate to all the places or landmarks shown in the video clips, but I remember thinking, and I still think to this day, that it’s one beauty of a city. Apparently, the young lady gets off the train to search for her lover, but sadly, her lover gets this bright idea to start walking around and even stops at this café place to sing with a band. Then, this bright young man sits in a corner like a little boy who has been given a time-out (totally against that by the way, not pedagogical at all, educators take note!).

Find Each Other Already!

At one point, the young lady was standing on a bridge. She didn’t have to say anything, but her face disclosed everything; it was impossible she’d ever find him in such a big city. They were about to give up, too (well, the young man appeared to have done so by the time she found him). Right when their efforts diminished she finally found him (lost and insecure she found him), randomly while she was walking. She saw a man sitting, in her face, you can read ‘Can it really be him?’ and in his face ‘Oh my, mommy has actually found me’. It’s a lovely moment when both of them get a chance to cherish and love each other again.

Throughout the situation, the man was convinced that he would never get to see, feel, and love her again. The lyrics are simple, but the music video tells a compelling story in just under 5 minutes.

Technology is the Devil?

On another note, it makes me reflect on how “lucky” we are to live in an era where we have technology. Could you not take it for granted? What felt like such an obstacle could have been easily solved with a simple text. Are we that lucky, though? In retrospect, it’s romantic to have a person wander around searching for their true love. Don’t you think? What would happen in 2024 if such a situation were to occur with a couple? Of course, they could text each other, but what if one doesn’t reply? What would you do? Would you wait?

Not My Proudest Moment

It happened to me once in 2016. My boyfriend and I were supposed to meet for dinner. I just left class, and he was supposed to come and meet me after his class. I texted him that I was already at Beurs waiting. He didn’t answer. I waited. I called. No answer. My immediate thought was that he had been hit by a big yellow school bus just like Regina (those invasive thoughts that something bad is always about to happen, I got from my mother). I kept calling, but no answer.

On the tram on my way home (because I gave up on him or maybe thought he just went home), he calls back. I yell at him ‘unda coño bo ta?!’. I could feel a few heads turn around; I was in Rotterdam, after all. He told me that his class had run late. See what I mean? See how quickly I gave up. I didn’t even wait 30 minutes for him. We are so used to having our ‘wants’ met immediately that we don’t have the patience to wait longer. Instant gratification is getting the best of us, and sometimes, we aren’t even aware of this.

I didn’t leave him of course, but I was mad. I had a moment of self-reflection and apologized. My point is people sometimes quickly move on, they don’t even fight for their love, it’s sad. Not the couple in the music video though, they kept searching, sort of.

What do you think? What is your take on this story? And do you like this song? Tell me everything!

Bye.