Hopeless Love
“It’s like you’re screaming and no one can hear. You almost feel ashamed that someone could be that important, that without them, you feel like nothing. No one will ever understand how much it hurts. You feel hopeless, but nothing can save you. And when it’s over, and it’s gone, you almost wish that you could have all that bad stuff back, so that you could have the good.” -We Found Love, Rihanna
You may love someone with all your heart, with all your soul even, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should be with them. Love and happiness are two different things. The person you love with every ounce of your being might even make you incredibly happy, but if you are no longer happy being IN a relationship, then there is no foundation. Someone may love you, and you may make them happy, but a relationship might not be making them happy any more. It’s the way life works, and sometimes, life is funny in its messages. Learn to be mature and understanding, understand that you were good and did everything in your power to love someone, but that sometimes something like someone’s graduation, move away, future, and life can get in the way. The love doesn’t necessarily die, but the relationship must. It’s okay not to be okay.
Enough?
Allowing yourself to be in a relationship and falling in love is a brave thing to do. A lot of people try to protect themselves from getting hurt and end up choosing to be alone, I think that is being naive. Cheating yourself out of love is being a coward. But pursuing a relationship, knowing that it might end someday, is a valiant thing. It takes courage to say “Yes, I’ll be your boyfriend” and know that you might get hurt in the end. It takes courage to be brave in the face of uncertainty, and that in itself is heroic. You wont lose anything by allowing yourself to love; if anything, you’ll learn a thing or two about yourself. A break-up, even if it is beautiful and loving, will make you look at yourself critically. “What did I do wrong?” whether you made a mistake or not, and make you look deep inside yourself and see if there are things you can change. He might tell you you’re perfect and did nothing wrong, but a part of you will always say you could have done better, that if you had amazed him enough, that if you had impressed him enough, that if you had done something to make him love you enough, no matter what life did to get in the way, it would have never ended. So you ask yourself what you could do better.
Love failures are not life failures. I learned this from Mari Ruti and her book “The Case for Falling in Love.” She makes a specific case for breakups were there is love to be had but life gets in the way. “He tells you he loves you, but he has to leave.” He might not have the answer. He might be utterly and honestly confused. All you can do is treasure the memories and love you built together and hope that at some point, some day, if it was meant to be, you’ll be together again. Just because you’re twenty feet away from him now and wish you were in his bed doesn’t mean you never will again. You might as well be in a week, a month, three months, a year, or five years from now. Life, again, is funny in that way. It gives you what you need when you most need it and then it takes it away. You learn to appreciate what you had once it’s gone, hopefully before it’s too late.
Is it right?
This post is for this type of breakups, the ones that end in a beautiful way because, as much as you’d like to try, life is messy and it gets in the way of something so precious. Calm breakups, not necessarily happy breakups, but ones were you don’t hate one another and still want to be a part of each other’s lives. They were special to you and you were special to them, and you know they’ll always be a part of your heart. When you love someone so much, you want them to be happy, even when you’re not a part of that happiness. Again, you might make them happy beyond reason, but the relationship no longer does because it carries fundamental responsibilities and ideals that are too much to handle with what life brings at the moment. You are willing to put their needs and their happiness over all the unbearable pain you are feeling. That’s when you love someone. That’s when you know one day you’ll meet again, even if you’re both 35 and married, you’ll run into each other at a coffee shop and remember the good days. Or at least, you hope you will.
Here’s a playlist that might help mend your heart if you’ve had a recent break up when life got in the way. I categorized it by stages, the stages I feel. Hope you enjoy.
1. Denial/Bargaining: You are trying to save the relationship. You wont let it end, so you’re trying to keep it afloat.
a. Listen To Your Heart (Unplugged) by DHT – “I don’t know where you’re going, and I don’t know why, but listen to your heart, before you tell him goodbye…the scent of magic, the beauty that’s been.”
b. Please Don’t Go by Barcelona – “If you want me to break down and give you the keys, I can do that but I can’t let you leave. Oh, please don’t go. I want you so, I can’t let go, for I lose control.”
c. I Wont Give Up by Jason Mraz – “And when you’re needing your space to do some navigating, I’ll be here patiently waiting to see what you find. Even the stars, they burn. Some even fall to the Earth. We got a lot to learn, [I] know we’re worth it. No, I wont give up.”
d. Start Over by Beyonce – “Maybe we reached the mountain peak, and there’s no more left to climb. And maybe we lost the magic peace, and we’re both too blind to fight. Let’s start over, let’s give love their wings…let’s start over, we can’t let our good love die. Maybe we can start over, give love another life.“
e. Stay by Miley Cyrus – “And if I could have just one wish, I’d have you by my side. Oh, I miss you. Oh, I need you. And I love you more than I did before, and if today I don’t see your face, nothing’s changed, no one can take your place. It gets harder every day.”
f. We Found Love (Cover) by Joey Diamond – “Turn away cause I need you more, feel the heartbeat in my mind. It’s the way I’m feeling, I just can’t deny, but I gotta let it go. We found love in a hopeless place.”
2. Anger – After trying so hard to deny and bargain and it still doesn’t work, you’re angry. You’re hurt and all you want is for him to know how angry you are because all you can think of is how selfish he’s being.
a. It Will Rain by Bruno Mars – “Don’t just say goodbye, don’t just say goodbye. I’ll pick up these broken pieces til I’m bleeding if that’ll make it right. Cause there’ll be no sunlight if I lose you baby…just like the clouds, my eyes will do the same, every day it’ll rain.”
b. Princess of China by Coldplay ft. Rihanna – “And why’d you have to go, have to go and throw water on my flame? I could’ve been a princess, you’d be a king, could’ve had a castle, and worn a ring. But no, you let me go. You stole my star.”
c. Fire Bomb by Rihanna – “You could’ve been a part of a master piece. Fluid in the brakes was the last to leave, that’s the thing, where I’m going I don’t need my brakes. Can’t wait to see your face, when your front windows break and I come crashing through…I just want to set you on fire so I don’t have to burn alone, then you, then you’ll know where I’m coming from.”
d. Like A Knife by Secondhand Serenade – “Cause if I watch you go, you’ll see me wasting, you’ll see me wasting away. Cause today you walked out of my life. Cause today your words felt like a knife. I’m not living this life…Stay with me, or watch me bleed. I need you to breathe.”
e. I Care by Beyonce – “I told you how you hurt me baby, but you don’t care. Now I’m crying and deserted baby, but you don’t care…Well I care, I know you don’t care too much…Boy, maybe if you cared enough, I wouldn’t have to care so much. ..Now you’re just giving up, you used to be so in love, now you don’t care no more.“
3. Depression – You’re not angry, not hopeful, just extremely sad and feeling empty. You don’t hate him because you know he loves you, and you’re not happy because he broke up with you, all you feel is a void.
a. Cry by Rihanna – “Did it happen when we first kissed, cause it’s hurting me to let it go? Maybe cause we spent so much time, and I know that it’s no more? I should’ve never let you hold me baby, maybe why I’m sad to see us apart. I didn’t give it to you on purpose, can’t figure out how you stole my heart.“
b. Fix A Heart by Demi Lovato – “I tried to sever ties and I ended up with bounds to bind, like you’re pouring salt in my cuts. And I just ran out of band-aids, I don’t even know where to start. Cause you can bandage the damage, you never really can fix a heart…Baby tell me how you could be so cruel, it’s like you’re pouring salt on my cuts.”
c. Don’t Forget by Demi Lovato – “Did you forget that I was even alive? Did you forget everything we ever had? Did you forget? Did you forget about me? Did you regret ever standing by my side? Did you forget what we were feeling inside? Now I’m left to forget about us…We had it all, we were about to fall even more in love than we were before. I wont forget, I wont forget about us.“
d. I Miss You by Beyonce – “I miss you, like everyday, wanna be with you, but you’re away. I said I miss you, missing you insane, but if I got with you, could it feel the same?…It don’t matter who you are, it’s so simple, a feeling, but it’s everything. No matter who you love, it’s so simple, a feeling, but’s it’s everything.”
e. Your Guardian Angel by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus – “When I see your smile, tears run down my face. I can’t replace…And I know I’ll find deep inside me, I can be the one. I will never let you fall, I’ll stand up for you forever. I’ll be there for you through it all…Cause you’re my, you’re my, my, my true love, my whole heart. Please don’t throw that away, cause I’m here for you. Please don’t walk away, and tell me you’ll stay.”
4. Acceptance – Whether he’s coming back or not, you have to accept that at this moment in time, it’s over. Right now, he has broken up with you. You’re single. He’s single. He’s in his bed sleeping and you’re in yours, half-drunk, writing because you miss him and can no longer text him. You accept it is what it is. So it is.
a. I Wish The Best For You by Emerson Hart – “We’ll both regret the hurting that we will do. You’ll learn to forget me, and I’ll try, I’ll try to forget. You. Me. Why can’t we see that there’s more to love than we’ll ever know? Sometimes you’re closer when you’re letting go. I wish the best for you…If you ever need a place that you can run to, I’ll be here, I’ll be here.”
b. Goodbye My Lover by James Blunt – “It may be over, but it wont stop there, I am here for you, if you’d only care. You touched my heart, you touched my soul, you changed my life and all my goals…I’ve kissed your lips, I’ve held your head, I’ve shared your dreams and shared your bed…goodbye my lover, goodbye my friend, you have been the one, you have been the one for me…I’d spend a lifetime with you…And I love you, I swear that’s true, I cannot live without you.”
c. Farewell by Rihanna – “And I know you’re going somewhere to make a better life, I hope that you find it on the first try. And even though it kills me that you have to go, I know we’ll be sadder if you never hit the road, so farewell. Somebody’s gonna miss you. Farewell. Somebody’s gonna wish that you were here, that somebody’s me…Imma try to be a big girl now, cause I don’t wanna be the reason you don’t leave.”
d. Someday by John Legend – “I still question why you left. I wonder how it didn’t work out, but now you’re gone and memories are all I have for now. But no, it’s not over. We’ll get older, we’ll get over. We’ll live to see the day that I hope for, come back to me. I still believe that we’ll get it right again. We’ll come back to life again, we won’t say another goodbye again, you’ll live forever with me. Someday. Someday we’ll be together. I heard someday might be today.“
Still standing & waiting.
Do you know how it feels to let go of someone you really love, just for them to be happy? Asking me to let you go is like asking me to tell my heart to stop beating. How can I just stop loving you? Just because I let you go doesn’t mean I wanted to. I love you enough to let you go because you asked me to, tears and pain in your eyes and all, and I love you enough to let you go. If you ever miss me, I’ll be here, arms wide open, ready to kiss you again. Hands down, I’m too proud for love, but with eyes shut, it’s you I’m thinking of.
Perfect.
