Soundtrack to a breakup

This is about a song that's on the only mix tape I made for ME. Whenever I hear it, it still takes me back.......

December 1987: I had just been unceremoniously dumped by my first real boyfriend--literally and figuratively--in my driveway and on the eve of my departure for a year abroad in Japan.

Same old story. The end of puppy love and the beginning of reckoning with the cold hard reality that "forever" usually has an expiration date after all.

I remember dragging myself into the house and doing the whole teen-angst-staring-at-my-teary-face-in-the-mirror thing. Woe was me. I was alone and facing spinsterhood at the age of 20.

Just then, one of my favorite songs from the Rolling Stones came on the radio (back in high school the radio was ALWAYS on, even in the bathroom). I turned it up and "You Can't Always Get What You Want" reverberated off the tiles. It was one of those visceral moments where not only the words but the energy of the song swept through me.

You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes well you just might find
You get what you need

That night the Rolling Stones threw me a lifeline. I thought that if Mr. Mick Jagger could have disappointments and see through to the other side, then I might just make it.

And I went down to the demonstration
To get my fair share of abuse
Singing, "We're gonna vent our frustration
If we don't we're gonna blow a 50-amp fuse"

Sure enough, I had a "blast" in Tokyo and keeping up a long distance relationship with "Dan the dumper" would have cramped my style anyways.To top it off, he got "his fair share of abuse" with the girl he left me for.

Fast forward to ten years later: I was HIS date to HER wedding, with the guy she dumped HIM for.

Just what I needed.