by
I recently went through a devastating breakup and as is typical among the heartbroken, music has helped me through the past few months. Music has always been a huge part of my life, making it and listening to it…and it was an important part of my relationship. Alberto and I came together, odds against us, living on opposite coasts, he in California, me in New York. We connected through music, exchanging songs online and chatting for hours about different artists. Our music collections grew with our love, doubling over the course of our relationship.
But things ended, messily, unexpectedly, last November. I could not believe that at 26, my breakup would feel so much like high school. It seems only fitting then, that I would revert back to my teenage self. All of my supposed sophistication in music…thrown to the wind in favor of playing certain songs on repeat to get through emotional tailspin that is the quarter-life breakup.
There are five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Each of my five stages had their own soundtrack. Actually, the first stage, denial, didn't have a soundtrack. Why? Because for the first few months, Alberto and I didn't stop talking. We used music as an excuse to contact each other. Those words…"I have new music to send you."…every time I heard them, I would make the mental calculation…I know that I shouldn't talk to him, I know that this is bad for me…but I want the music. My music collection grew as he and I grew apart.
One of the worst parts of the breakup was the music I lost. So many songs reminded me of being with Alberto…and of all of the musicians, the one that I missed most was Amos Lee. He was my favorite when I was single...but those songs became inextricably linked to Alberto, to being in love. Amos seemed lost to me forever.
The second stage, anger, comes in the form of girly power-ballads and Jo Jo's Too Little, Too Late, was mine. It has been and continues to be a source of embarrassment for me. JoJo is seventeen years old. What could this teenager possibly know about heartbreak? A lot, apparently. The song's been played hundreds, maybe thousands of times on my ipod. I'm not sure how many times exactly…I erased the play count lest prying eyes look at my most played list. [Too Little, Too Late]
My bargaining song, Last Request, is by another teenage crooner, Paolo Nutini. This song came on as Alberto and I said goodbye, in person, a month after we broke up. He cried, he said he cared, and that made me feel better, but then came the inevitable, what if? Could we make it work? Enabled by Paolo, I kept hanging on…[Last Request]
The fourth stage, depression, came in the form of Rachael Yamagata's The Reason Why. To this day, it's still the most played song on my ipod. [The Reason Why]
You know you've reached the last stage, acceptance, and you won't go back, when you can finally listen to the songs you shared without falling apart. You reclaim those songs for yourself, and you build new memories around them. I knew I'd be ok when I could get through my favorite Amos Lee song, Keep It Loose, Keep it Tight, without bursting into tears.
Backannounce: Irene Jay Liu is sad she won't be seeing Amos Lee in concert with her sister at the Coachella Music Festival next weekend.