I wish I could go back to a time where breakup songs were just catchy to me.
At the end of July my ex and I went through what I thought was a mutual breakup. I was truly convinced that we would potentially get back together in a few months, and that we both just needed to work on ourselves first. I could not have been more wrong. This was my first real, intense– and for what I would say– long relationship. This was my first breakup. Nothing prepares you for how you feel when you wake up that next morning. At first, I was sad that it was over and that I felt I could not reach out to him. That sadness turned into mourning. I realized that the person I was missing did not exist anymore. We both had changed, and the person I cared about was gone. I had no idea how to cope.
Nobody goes through the same exact breakup experience. What I had learned was that we all can feel this way at one point or another. We all need to find our own form of healing. For me that was music. Do not deny the power of a good breakup playlist. Here is the playlist I had on repeat after the breakup and after finding out how he moved on so fast. I had heard all these songs before, but this time around they hit different. These are the songs I would sing/scream at the top of my lungs in my car as my personal form of free therapy.
- “i luv him” by Catie Turner
- “Loving & Losing” by Delaney Bailey
- “I miss you, I’m sorry” by Gracie Abrams
- “If This is Love” by Ruth B.
- “Forget about us” by Clinton Kane
- “Crying Over You” by The Band CAMINO
- “She Gets the Flowers” by Beth McCarthy
- “Someone New” by Banks
- “tolerate it” by Taylor Swift
- “enough for you” by Olivia Rodrigo
- “Traitor” by Olivia Rodrigo
- “Save Myself” by Ashe
- “Happier Than Ever” by Billie Eilish
- “Your Name Hurts” by Hailee Steinfeld
- “Reckless” by Madison Beer
- “You Should be Sad” by Halsey
- “i hope ur miserable until ur dead” by Nessa Barrett
To Make a long story short, by the end of August, roughly a month after my ex and I broke up, I was packing up from my vacation when I saw my ex had changed his profile to him and another girl. Then it was immediately changed to a photo of a dog. I found out directly from my ex later that he put that picture there by accident, but it didn’t matter because I saw what I saw. Shockingly, I was okay because it had been a month. Although, I am not ashamed to admit that my friends and I did some FBI work which led to us finding photos of them together just three days after we broke up. When the timeline became clear my heart sank. I felt like I was back to square one of the healing process. I truly felt betrayed because even though “[he] didn’t cheat…[he’s] still a traitor.” I did not care to discover what the true context of these photos was because all I could see was that he was over me in just three days. I wished I was him; I wished that I could erase ten months in three days.
My mom always says if a person shows you who they really are you should believe them. My ex showed his true colors. Wrapping my head around my massive miscalculation of his character was hard. I struggled to let myself show that I was sad and hurt. I was ashamed to show any vulnerability because he never did, he just moved on. I did eventually learn that it takes strength to allow your true emotions to surface and that hiding them is just isolating. I left this relationship knowing it was the right timing for me to put myself first because I needed to remind myself how it is okay to be on my own.
Right after the breakup I was at a loss of words. I kept my feelings to myself, but mostly because I had no idea how to feel or what to say. Listening to music helped me find the words and truly let out the emotions I was keeping in. Music helped free me.