Breaking up: it fucking sucks. It takes away rational thought, you turn into a self obsessed whiney bitch, — everything is drained by the shadow it casts.
That coked up guy at the party who has to tell you about what he thinks, no matter how intrusive he is? Well when the wound is still fresh it's like having him inside your head 24/7 — he just won't shut up about her or anything bad that there is to dwell upon. This sad state of affairs robs you of your dignity - I mean for fucks sake I even found myself listening to Coldplay last year.
But even allowing for that dubious choice, music takes on a deeper resonance, lyrics are unlocked to speak a myriad of comforting or validating themes that you never grasped before...and it helps, for me at least. Music has always been a very big thing for me in my life, playing, listening, deconstructing, discovering.
When me and K broke up (which was several times last year, and with abrupt finality in this) I had a heavy rotation of tunes pumped into my head which soundtracked and cathartically pulled the shit I was feeling out of me. From the Bristolian laments of Roads & Show, through to Polar Opposites the latter which pretty much defined how I felt for about a month.
A well written sunny love song is one thing, but the melancholy captured sound of a love lost is all the more evocative and powerful. It taps into those thankfully rarely visited, unfamiliar corners of our hearts. So maybe the only way we make sense of them is by letting another who has felt this pain provide the illuminating soundtrack that sheds light on to the path we find ourselves stumbling along.
Whilst in the depths of this moping self indulgence last year I was talking with a friend about the poignancy of music. When you meet someone and fall in love you tell everyone about it. You tell them what she's like, repeat the stories she told you, you tell everyone why she's not like anyone else. You introduce her to your friends, your social timetable, to the soft vulnerable side of you so few have met that you've been protecting for all these years.
And then it comes to an end. All of it suddenly stops.
The best friend you spoke to every day is no longer on hand to share that stupid link with that you just saw, a tune you'd just heard that made you feel something, or the video of that panda falling over that you know will make her smile. Which made you smile as a result. Which now makes you sigh.
And it's the opposite path to the one you entered into this love by. Breaking up is a horribly solipsistic experience. Even if you wanted to let people in (which I didn't at all), no one can ever know what it is you're going through. For each person their sadness is informed by all the subtle nuances of their own break up, all the things that for some reason have stuck in your mind. You withdraw. You don't want to talk about her. Don't want to have to explain what happened. A story riven with shame, weakness and vulnerability. But you can't stop thinking about her.
And I think that in some way music becomes your new companion through all this - in it's own abstract way it makes more sense than anything else throughout all of what your emotional head is trying to deal with. You can call upon it when you're angry, when you're sad, when you just need to try to take your mind off of things it pulls you out of your egocentric contemplation and places you in another's; your words spoken by another. It says all the right things, explains the pain to you, shows you that it can be a constructive power, allows you to embrace it.
Music is a love affair that endures.
