There’s a reason Lorde’s new album is such a banger, and it’s highly due to the fact that her melodies are catchy, yet also due to the vulnerable sentimentality of her lyrics. Look, I know it’s such a passé thing to do… every single person eventually will take an emotional ride on the tsunami of a music artist’s work (it’s kind of the point) but honestly, I had to give the lady credit for some seriously raw and beautiful stuff.
In the killer track Hard Feelings/Loveless, Lorde chimes “It’s time to let go of this endless summer afternoon”… and when I heard that, I immediately felt a huge pang in my chest. Why though? I’d made all this progress on the path of self-love and moving on but it still hurt me to think the endless summer afternoon had an end-point. What? Girl, we’ve been through this before – it HAS ended. You. Are. Not. In. Love. Anymore. Then I realised.
I hadn’t truly let go of the fact that “he” somehow still loved me. This stems from this phenomenon I’ve encountered through social anecdotes of love and loss when people can look back on a lost-love and feel a sense of gratitude and optimism. The oh-so-hopeful “I loved him, and he loved me, and hell yeah, we could’ve loved each other forever but the timing was just all wrong” type anecdote we imagine old people rattle off with a wistful look in their eyes. I had this ambitious impression that I could manifest this distant romanticism that belonged to my future-self straight away. I had the belief that it wouldn’t be damaging to do so, but I was wrong.
I was still coddling myself with the belief that this person who said goodbye was going to spend a lengthy time pining over me, and that somehow, the forces of the world could bring us back together by chance if it just so happened to be. In a sense, I really hadn’t let go of him as an object of love. I just pushed him aside to somewhere in my heart, thinking, “people always have a spot in their heart for people they once loved”. They do. Not straight away though.
Definitely not 6 months after that person broke them into pieces.
Moving forward in the wrong direction – and forgiving yourself for that – is a big part of the process of reform. I’ve looked into what went wrong for me and realise that my incapacity to truly, truly let go of this (and likely any) major love are due to 3 main battles with myself:
1. I am fixated on the idea of constantly and always being the object of another person’s romantic love
2. I struggle to live day-to-day in a life void of romantic affection (including affectionate thoughts and memories)… ya girl just wants a good, meaningful spoon. Y’all know what it’s like.
3. I’m truly unable to see myself thriving as a single entity in this crazy journey through life
I was going to expand on these, but truthfully, I think they speak for themselves. My general belief in love conquering all still stands, but I feel now more than ever that I can’t let it restrain me through the aforesaid mechanisms.
Therefore, I should - and will - be fine knowing not a single person in the world holds romantic love for me.
I should - and will – be able to get through the painstaking responsibilities of being human without wrapping myself in someone else’s love.
And lastly, I should - and will - realise that being in a partnership should not define my life’s course.
I should. And despite every emotional obstacle entrenched directly in my way – I know.
I know that eventually, I will.
I know that eventually, I will.
x M
