Touche amore irving plaza9/7/2023 ![]() ![]() I had conflicting emotions of still loving this person and also wondering why he managed to break every single one of his promises to me without so much as a single ounce of remorse. Not only had I lost someone, but I was betrayed and damaged by that person. What I wanted was to release all the pain inside of me. I knew I’d be okay because everyone recovers eventually. I didn’t care much about positive adages and hopeful messages. It’s not easy by any means and it’s entirely frightening, but I knew I needed the honesty to feel better. If you want to patch up all the incisions, you have to submit. ![]() Problems don’t disappear because you turn your back on them or pretend to start anew. To recover from pain, I truly believe you have to look at all the nasty, grotesque issues in the eyes. I wanted the brutal honesty that came with pain and it’s why I found so much solace in albums like Stage Four. I’m not a public person, but everyone exists in a community with enough of an audience to take note of even the smallest of changes. If I bled in front of everyone, it wasn’t so much for attention as much as it was just the truth of what was happening to me. What you wouldn’t find on that scan is any sort of care about how people saw me process my grief. If you’d have taken a CAT scan of my brain, you’d have seen my entire brain lit up, neurons firing every second trying to understand why my life had been flipped upside down. Experiencing grief publicly is a fine and shaky line. ![]() It’s curious that it’s more acceptable to write a song or make art about grief than it is to make a post saying “People say that with time it gets easier, but I just think that they are wrong.” The former will grant you accolades, the latter will grant you judgment, yet they’re the same thing. It’s a million questions leading to dead ends. It’s why’d you leave me, it’s how dare you leave me, it’s you promised you’d never hurt me, it’s fuck you, it’s good riddance, it’s please come back, it’s God take me from this Earth, it’s I believed you when you said you’d love me forever. When it happened, I discovered that grief isn’t just a puddle of tears, but also a seething anger. I remember thinking that if something devastating happened to me, like the ending of what I thought was a perfect relationship, I’d hide under the covers forever, maybe move away. I never expected grief to come with such fury. As someone who has rarely felt anger in her life, I surprised myself with the insurmountable rage I felt towards this breakup. The person you’ve lost isn’t gone forever, but there’s the dread that comes with knowing their world continues on without you. The death of a relationship is peculiarly painful. Unfortunately, as is the nature of grief, this arc would repeat itself. This arc of emotions felt like fireworks in my chest. I thought of how riddled with sadness I was the year prior and how perfectly happy I felt now. It felt whole and so beautifully cyclical. It felt cosmic and perfect to listen to an album so important to me with the person I loved most in this world. Charmingly enough, the band announced an anniversary tour where they’d be playing Stage Four in its entirety. Months later, he would tell me he’d think of me any time he heard Touché Amoré. We bonded over music, exchanged playlists, talked about bands we thought no one else liked and what they meant to us. It also helped that I found a new love, one that was exciting, sweet, and most importantly-healthy. With every passing day the flame grew smaller and the pain settled. I let the fire wash over me for months after. I realize now how much I needed to feel angry. What I needed was something louder and more visceral. Pushing through the pain with a collected face wasn’t fulfilling or healing. I kept my head above water for so long, but my body was aching for submission. I remember feeling heartache, of losing something you love, someone you love, and trying to act normal. “I’m heartsick and well-rehearsed…” shouts Jeremy Bolm, and immediately I found the connection and relatability that I was trying, and failing, to find in breakup songs. ![]()
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