Thinking back on all the mistakes you made in a relationship is a painful experience. All you want is another chance to undo the petty or stupid things you did, and for the person who dumped you to say that maybe, at some point, you can give things another try. It doesn't matter if they really mean it, you just want that possibility to exist somewhere in the universe. Time passes, and you think back on things. Maybe you've moved on, maybe you haven't-- either way, it aches. It will always ache whenever you see that person.
"Lean your head on mine/ Like you used to. / (Used to your lean) / I don't mind if you're faking it." Fuck I love Jawbreaker.
When you are in a relationship, you sometimes build an "us vs. them" kind of narrative; each of you acknowledges that the other person is the only one who really "gets" you. This bond can be precious, and when you are knee-deep in shit, you can always look with comfort towards your relationship and your partner who will sympathize with you. When they break-up with you, it feels like the deepest kind of betrayal. They'll say they still love you or want to be friends, but you have been stung with the realization that they don't share the kind of bond you thought you had.
Enter Black Flag's "My War": "You say that you're my friend, but you're one of them!"
A difficult part of being dumped is seeing or hearing about the person who left you moving forward with their life, while you remain stuck in stasis. You think you can make things work somehow, that your relationship can not only be repaired, but be made better and stronger than ever before. And then, as you turn to tell the person your plan to resolve all the issues, they are walking out the door.
Adem's "Launch Yourself" presents this situation, and while the dumped one has his back turned, the other person rockets herself into space, and towards better things: "You pressed / The button / To launch yourself / While I was outside / You left me stranded / While you broke through / The atmosphere."
When your partner dumps you, he or she will sometimes tell you that they still love you, and they want to salvage a friendship. While this is often a big lie to keep you from feeling bad, it can also have some truth to it. Yet this new kind of love they may still feel for you is almost worse than having no contact with the person, since it feels cheap and motivated by their own guilt. And how can you ever be friends with them after the deep wounds they have caused you?
Camera Obscura's "James" can be seen as an exploration of this event, and of "why love gets up and goes," or at least changes into something else. While the eponymous character will no doubt always love the dumped person "in his own way," she wants to be with him still, something most of the dumped can relate to.
When you really depend on someone in a relationship for your emotional needs, their decision to dump you can be the most devastating thing imaginable. You beg them, tell them things will change, that you know that you can make them happy-- and none of it works. Your friends and family will tell you that you need to move on, but you feel like you can change the other person's mind if only they knew how much you love them, and how deeply they have hurt you. Of course, it won't.
The Streets song "Dry Your Eyes" documents this dialogue; the verses talk about the break-up:
In one single moment your whole life can turn 'round
I stand there for a minute starin' straight into the ground
Lookin' to the left slightly, then lookin' back down
World feels like it's caved in – proper sorry frown
Please let me show you where we could only just be, for us
I can change and I can grow or we could adjust
The wicked thing about us is we always have trust
We can even have an open relationship, if you must
I look at her she stares almost straight back at me
But her eyes glaze over like she's lookin' straight through me
Then her eyes must have closed for what seems an eternity
When they open up she's lookin' down at her feet
The chorus advises the dumped man to:
Dry your eyes mate
I know it's hard to take but her mind has been made up
There's plenty more fish in the sea
Dry your eyes mate
I know you want to make her see how much this pain hurts
But you've got to walk away now
It's over
This song rings very true, and captures the bewildering sadness and confusion of a break-up you didn't see coming.
While you may look back with regret on some of the decisions you made in your relationship, you sometimes feel like you did the best you could. You treated the other person right, loved them like no other, and yet they still left you. You may ask yourself, "If the best I can offer is still not enough, then how can I be sure that the next person I love, if there is a next person, won't just pack up and leave too?"
Sure, Darondo looks like he's got his shit together, but he's been hurt too. In "Didn't I?" he asks his soon to be ex-lover, "Why you wanna leave me baby? / Didn't I treat you right?" This is a question which in many cases is better left unanswered, but still bears heavily upon us.
A friend of mine recently told me that one of the most difficult things to accept as a human is the condition of not knowing something. This is especially true in matters of the heart, when the person you love leaves you. The Jawbreaker song "Do You Still Hate Me?" (the first of several Jawbreaker songs that will no doubt appear on this blog) is about that unknowing, that position of speculating what the other person is thinking, whether you will ever even be friends again, hearing through friends what he or she is doing, whether you should try to contact them or leave them alone. It also captures the pain in thinking back on how things were once good, and how the person you long for once loved you:
Been hearing about you.
All about your disapproval.
Still I remember the way I used to move you.
I wrote you a letter.
I heard it just upset you.
Why don't you tell me?
How can I do this better?
Are you out there?
Do you hear me?
Can I call you?
Do you still hate me?
Are we talking?
Are we fighting?
Is it over?
Are we writing?
We're getting older.
But we're acting younger.
We should be smarter.
It seems we're getting dumber.
I have a picture
of you and me in Brooklyn.
On a porch, it was raining.
Hey, I remember that day.
And I miss you
The worst time during a break-up is always the mornings-- your subconscious mind often makes you forget the reality that things have ended and, as you sleep, if you sleep, things sometimes reset themselves. You wake up terrified, in disbelief, and the awful reality sets in. This remembering and forgetting is a painful ritual that is captured brilliantly by The Mountain Goats in "Moon Over Goldsboro":
I went down the the gas station for no particular reason,
heard the screams from the high school --
it's football season.
empty lot the station faces,
will probably be there forever.
I climbed over the four foot fence,
I was trying to sever the tether.
moon in the sky, cold as a stone
spend each night in your arms, always wake up alone.
I lay down in the weeds, it was a real cold night.
I was happy until the overnight attendant
switched on the floodlight.
walking home I was talking to you under my breath,
saying things I would never say directly.
I heard a siren on the road highway ahead.
kinda wish they'd come and get me
frost on the sidewalk, white as a bone
tried to get close to you again, always wake up alone.
and as i was crossing our doorstep,
i hesitated just a moment there.
remembered the day we moved into our small house
'til the vision got too vivid to bear.
you were almost asleep, halfway undressed
i lay right down next to you
held your head against my chest.
and a guy with any kind of courage
would maybe stop to think the matter through
maybe hold you still and raise the question,
instead of blindly holding on to you.
but we crank up the heat
and you giggle and moan,
spend all night in the company of ghosts,
always wake up alone
