"Time Is Running Out" is a hit song by the band Muse. It's also my roommate's ring tone for her cellphone. It's also oddly prophetic.
Now let me get this one thing out of the way quickly: I don't like the band Muse. I don't really think their music is all that innovative or original. Maybe that's because my roommate plays their music all the time, and I'm just suffering from some auditory fatigue. In any case, I don't want this to seem like a blatant advertisement for this song. I have a series for Progressive Songs, and this one doesn't make the cut.
But like I mentioned before, the song is oddly prophetic, at least in my one case here.
I've mentioned my roommate before in a blog and described her situation. She's stuck in a bad relationship with a verbally abusive boyfriend, practically slave to do anything he tells her too. I've made it clear to her how my feelings are about this guy, and that he's no good for her, and that there's other fish in the sea...blah, blah, blah. Still she's with him. Still she puts up with the name calling and the yelling and how he and his friends make her cry and feel like dirt on a weekly basis. She can't focus on her classes or her work or anything else in her life because she orbits around him. We couldn't go out to town on Sunday without him demanding for her to edit his paper. He even said, "Just f*cking do it, Bitch" and said that no one else would ever go out with her because she's annoying and ugly. He's also said things to her like "Bro's before Ho's, Bitch" and routinely insults her intelligence. All in all, a bad situation.
So he calls her, oftentimes to make demands or yell at her for something that's not her fault, and the ring tone screeches, "Our time is running out, Our time is running out" and now every time I hear it I can't help but wonder if she hears the same thing I do.
And now, just this minute, I looked up the lyrics to the song (because I can never understand what singers are saying) and it gets even weirder. I won't post the whole song here, but every line echoes my roommate's situation.
I think I'm drowning
asphyxiated
I wanna break this spell
that you've created
you will be the death of me
I wanted freedom
bound and restricted
I tried to give you up
but I'm addicted
Every piece of this is like a mirror held up to my friend. She's trapped, restricted, and addicted to this idiot boy. He's bad for her, drowning her in wallowing in tides of low self esteem and confusion.
At this stage, there's nothing I can do, and that's probably the worst part of it all. I stopped hiding that I didn't like him to my friend, and have (many times) described specific examples of how I came to that conclusion. "You only see the bad stuff, though," she tells me. But the bad stuff is enough. I know couples fight and have their disagreements, but a boyfriend who insults and verbally abuses his girlfriend on almost a daily basis is not A-quality material.
Not being able to do anything hurts me inside as I watch her suffering. She asks me some times, "Do you think he'll cheat on me?" and I have to quickly think if I tell her my honest opinion or a "harmless" white lie. She obsesses over a girl that goes to his school because she doesn't trust him. She's pretty sure he'd cheat on her too.
Is this anyway for a college sophomore to live?
So I guess what I'm asking you all is this: Evaluate the pluses and minuses in your life. Subtract what needs to be subtracted. And if you have a friend like mine, hang in there and try to be there for her. I don't necessarily know if my predicted future for her will happen, but I hope the breakup does happen soon. Stay strong, ProgU friends, because sometimes the hardest thing you'll ever do is not do anything.
