No. 021 - Winger’s “Miles Away” changed my life
Adult sleepovers, homemade potato salad, and KC Schmitz's journey of separating love from possession
This Song Changed My Life is an independent music publication featuring essays from people all around the world about the songs that mean the most to them. Created by Grace Lilly, supported by readers.
• 5 min read •
I have a lover in Malaysia.
I met a chef who was passing through town for a few days for an event at a neighborhood restaurant in May of last year.
I was 9 months into being single for the first time in my adult life and over the course of 4 days we drank dozens of bottles of wine and mezcal and played adult sleepover in the hotel a block from my house.
I had a great time; he's funny and kind and has lived a million interesting lives, but he was headed to southeast Asia to open a restaurant and I had no intentions of staying in touch, aside from occasionally asking for restaurant recommendations when I visit his hometown.
So when he slid into my DMs a few months later from 12 hours in the future, an unlikely, bizarre, and beautiful friendship started.
Now over a year later, we talk at least once a week, usually exchanging smut, but sometimes he just calls to tell me about his menu ideas or to send me renderings of the next restaurant he wants to open.
We’re there for each other in ways that few people can be, with no promise of commitment or future plans, just the willingness to listen and share and laugh and reply.
Thanks to the end of a 10 year monogamous relationship and a few fistfuls of shrooms, my views on love, friendship, and relationships have evolved dramatically over the past few years.
At this point in my life I know I am not interested in a monogamous relationship, but I understand my infinite capacity to love and be loved. I understand that unconditional love is just that: unconditional; it has nothing to do with possession or commitment or being the only important person in someone’s life.
A few weeks ago my long distance lover made a confession. He recently started seeing a girl seriously. It's open, he assured me, and she likes that he has other women in his life, but he had a hard time not feeling disloyal.
"I'm in love like a teenager," he gushed. My heart swelled: I was so happy for him I could burst, and I told him so. Even though we will never be in a traditional “relationship,” I love him. Even though our friendship has consisted mostly of sexting, I care deeply about him as a person. And if I care about him, then all I can hope for is that he is happy and loved.
Relieved that there was no jealousy or weird vibes around the subject he began flirting. It was 10am and I was not in the mood. I was frank with him - "Not now,” I said, “I'm busy making potato salad and sulking." I opened up to him about my unrequited love for someone who would later come over for dinner with a big group of friends. I was heartsick and anxious at the thought of seeing this person.
From 19,000 km away, he understood the ways I needed to feel loved and seen, and he began to fire off Spotify links to corny hair metal power ballads. “Metalheads are the cheesiest mofos,” he joked. The first one: Winger’s “Miles Away.”
Bittersweet keys in F open the verse, swelling to a triumphant chorus and wailing guitars.
Just when I needed you most
You were miles away
Dear readers, I sobbed into my potato salad. I replayed the song. Again and again. Belting the lyrics through my runny nose.
This gesture was so sweet, so loving, so unabashedly schmaltzy; it was exactly what I needed. “This isn’t helping!” I teased. “I’m here to make feelings be felt. Never said they were only good ones,” he retorted.
It was the most intimate exchange I’d had in many months, and as silly as it may seem, it changed my life. Or rather, it confirmed that my life had already forever changed.
From across the world, from someone I barely knew, I felt unconditional love. I knew then that everything that I’ve learned about love through self healing and psychedelic contemplation is my absolute truth, and I’m increasingly able to integrate these findings into all of my interactions.
It’s very hard to explain these views to people who haven’t felt them with their own heart. They’re quick to dismiss my newfound enlightenment as a phase. They roll their eyes, “Oh yeah I’ve tried that. It won’t make you happy.”
And I get why it makes people uncomfortable. It’s difficult to divorce the idea of love from possession. We’re conditioned to wrap our self esteem in someone else’s validation - paradoxical as that may be.
We are constantly looking for signs and proof of another’s love. Morning greetings like clockwork. Gifts and gestures that demonstrate thoughtfulness. Empirical proof of an inalienable #1 spot in an illogical hierarchy.
The first time you feel that your heart’s deepest desire is for another person to feel all of the love and happiness in the world without expecting anything in return, you’ll never struggle to understand it again. And the first time you bask in the glow of unconditional love, unique and unassailable, you’ll shed the need to be #1. You will just be. ◆
About KC
KC Schmitz is a chef and general Swiss army knife of a person living in Bogota, Colombia. Her ideal Sunday afternoon consists of hosting a barbecue, smoking a jay, and listening to salsa into the wee hours of the morning.
Instagram @kcschmitz1
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First of all, i have SUCH a soft spot for cheesy metalheads. Hair metal, I mean. Pop Metal. Glam metal. Whatever you wanna call it. it wore its dumb heart right on its sleeve. So I can completely relate to having a song like that cling to you. Kip Winger, incidentally, composes classical music now.
And this is a beautiful story. Thanks for sharing. Also, let's normalize sharing smut!