I love your brain

I’ve heard Tears of a Clown several times this past week, which is kind of random and unusual. The song always reminds me of a dear friend, who once asked me to promise that it was played at his funeral. A strange request, especially since it was made when we were in our late teens, if my memory serves me correctly (which it doesn’t always). At the time both the Smokey Robinson and The Beat versions were in play.

It used to strike me as an odd choice, especially for my friend. He and I met under funny circumstances in high school. He was a grade below me, and we had a mutual friend who had decided we looked alike so she started calling us by each other names. At some point it only made sense that we met. We became fast friends, he one of my best.

Thirty some odd years later, he is still a dear friend. I don’t see him nearly as often as I’d like but every time I hear that song, he leaps into my thoughts, and the more I contemplate the song choice, the more I’ve come to understand that even back when we were kids, there were parts of him I didn’t know.

To me, a somewhat insecure, but likeable girl, he was the full package -bright, handsome, very funny and popular.   We shared a lot of interests and sensibilities, which is why we got along famously. We still can pick up from the last point whenever we do manage to get together and fall back into a comfortable ease. I treasure him.

But I’ve also come to recognize that the smile sometimes does hide tears. Maybe not quite that dramatically but that there is a underlying current of sadness to him that I couldn’t distinguish when we were young, but that feels somewhat familiar to me now. Life has seasoned my compassion and when I look deeper into his smile, I see so much more.

I understand why the song resonated with him, and perhaps what he was trying to tell me even back then when we were young.

I now sometimes feel like it’s an appropriate song for my life as it unfolded. I don’t have just one song, I’ll probably create a playlist when it’s time because that’s what I do…but this song will likely be on it because I’ve come to understand that sometimes people just need to believe that your smile is a smile, and not a façade for what’s really going on inside, and sometimes you just need people to think it’s a smile too.