Fallout
ISSUE #74
Now I'm in a perilous position, having a weekly mixtape platform that also doubles as what is essentially a diary, the perfect storm for a broken heart to make a complete ass of itself. I'll restrain myself, but we all know what an idiot grief makes us, and only the devil knows how long it will last.
The problem with sharing the breakup playlist is that it tends to justify the decision of whoever wanted to leave. It's not hot to be pathetic, sappy, maudlin, etc. God forbid anyone catch me listening to one. People are repelled by grief—sadness is, in a way, contagious. This isolates us further, a cycle on repeat.
If only I'd had a Ghost of Jeffrey Future to sweep me away every time I said "I'd rather love and be heartbroken later than never love at all." We could teleport to now and I'd peer in my window, watch myself on the couch for ten hours, covered in half-eaten granola bars, can't get up to pee. "Wow," I could say, "I almost forgot how much it hurts. Thanks, G.o.J.F." Then I could bang on the window and scare myself (helps the indoor me take his mind off of things).
In college, my then-girlfriend came back from a trip and promptly dumped me. I made a silly pair of playlists, one of how I thought the homecoming would be ("Expectations"), and one of how it actually was ("Reality"). Love songs vs. heartbreak songs, which have always been twins, really. I stole the idea from 500 Days of Summer. You can see how quickly I get insufferable; I've been doing this a long time. Save your applause, please!
It's hard to survive without one, though. They're necessary for salvaging the spirit whenever possible, when 6 a.m. approaches and you still can't sleep, when your thoughts are all clichés and there's nothing to do but drown them out. It's nice to get a wallower's song and follow it up with an optimist's song—you need some that lift you up and some that will split your pain and share it with someone else.
I'll give us this one sad-sack playlist, it's an Earwyrms Essential. You might need it some day too.
One (inconvenient) symptom is that I can't listen to music anymore. I can no longer take the emotional stimuli. As a music writer, it's distressing; as a lover of irony, it rules. I'm like a sober bartender, but less respectable and more bemusing.