It’s been a full two weeks since the beloved/dreaded Valentine’s Day - a Hallmark holiday of chocolates, roses and pain. Whatever it is you’ve experienced, the fresh breath of new love blooming in the spring, or the pain of unrequited love shattering in the cold, we’ve got you covered with these playlists. (And we’re on Spotify now!)
Have you ever loved somebody who couldn’t love you back? And your fondest memories are of gazing across a room, hoping to catch their eye? Unrequited love is like being stranded in the ocean. Surrounded by deep blue waves that gleam in the moonlight like sapphires, floating in the never-ending sea. It’s beautiful, no doubt. There’s a city under the water, made of diamonds and rubies, all formed from the ruins of ancient civilisations. They gleam and glow and you love them, despite the flaws. You live in harmony with the sea, and the sea protects you. There’s clarity in your eyes, a skip in your swim and your heart is flying. That’s love. It’s beautiful, and brilliant, and you never want to leave. And then you catch a glimpse of land in sight. And the land seems to be even more beautiful than the sea. So you venture up to investigate. The waves lap at your skin, warning you. But you press on. That land… that land can never take you in. You try. You try desperately to clamber onto the sandy shores. Your hands clutch the remains of a fallen tree. You cling to the edge of the water, hovering in the waves. But the land turns you away, tosses you back into the sea. And you’re slowly carried away with the tides. That land may have seemed like home. It may have seemed reassuring, comforting, warm and loving. But no. That land can never take you in. That land can never be home. That’s the unrequited.
It’s spring. You’re young and full of life. There’s a glow in your cheeks and a skip in your step. For once, you feel content with life. Falling in love is unexpected. It’s like one moment you’re in free fall, experiencing acceleration due to gravity, speeding your way between the stars and entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Falling in love is like burning up. And then… poof! You’re caught on a bed of fluffy clouds (which probably look, smell and taste like cotton candy). And these clouds cradle you in warmth and affection, before lowering you slowly to the grounds of a flower-filled meadow. At first, love makes you feel butterflies in your stomach which won’t digest despite the best efforts of your enzymes. And eventually those butterflies morph into normalcy and calmness - like a warm drink on a cold winter night. An everlasting halo of happiness. Love goes in for an electrifying, mind-numbing first kiss. It leaves you speechless and shocked, dizzy from a chemical high. Love chuckles and wraps itself around you, and you melt into its grasp. Then love goes in for another kiss. Then another. Then another. And those spine-shattering, adrenaline-inducing kisses slowly turn into a warmth pooling in your chest, flowing out of your heart. And love holds you close. Forever.
Ah heartbreak. The characteristic dark side of falling in love. Heartbreak is isolating. Whether it comes from a crumbling relationship or a tragic tale of unrequited love, heartbreak is painful. Heartbreak is your brain collapsing in on itself, your heart hammering at a million miles a minute before just… giving up. You begin to exist outside of time and space. You still survive. You still exist. You have to. But you don’t live. Heartbreak weighs you down. In the movies, heartbreak is always shown as inconsolable crying in the rain and storms. Heartbreak isn’t really like that. It happens regardless of the weather. Most of the time, you don’t cry. You’re just weighed down. Sad. Subdued. It’s hard to find the joy in anything when your heart is at war with your mind; and your soul (sadistic thing it is) watches on, amused. Your mind traps you in your shackles, the endless iron chains and stone-cold walls of “what ifs” and “how dids”. Ice swirls around you, curling and twisting in patterns of lace. They’re like dreams. Hopes. The happy side of any love. And then they shatter. Right before your eyes. Synecdoche for your life. A beautiful and broken mess. Your heart cages you, raging and beating. You tear at the barbed wire fences only to see your heart screaming at you, cursing you for the pain it’s going through. Your heart constricts and distorts and you watch the grotesque disaster that is yourself in pain. Say goodbye to the person you knew. It’s time for a heartbreak honeymoon.
Moving on is difficult. You have to fight to keep yourself alive. Moving on is like dying. You have to sacrifice yourself before you can be reborn. Stronger. So you step into the fire and burn away the pain. At first, it hurt. The flames lap at your skin and swirl up your body, scorching and burning you. It’s unbearable, and your lips part in a silent scream. The flames don’t soothe you, they consume you. They burn through your flesh and wash over your bones. And then you start to feel relief. You accept the flames and embrace them. You take the flames to your heart, and it burns away the remnants of them. It feels good. It’s like when you’re under a hot shower (something like 2000°C) and instead of feeling hurt and broken, it’s calming, comforting. It’s warm and gentle. The flames don’t hate you, they love you. They want to consume you, devour you. They invade you. Mind, body and soul. The flames wash away the pain. The flames wrap around your heart and cradle you. And someday, sometime soon, you realise that… you’re not thinking about them anymore. They’re not chipping away at the back of your mind. The good memories are treasured, tucked away in a safe corner of your heart. The flames don’t touch those. The bad memories on the other hand… their remnants linger. But they don’t matter as much. The flames have washed them away. And when the flames dissipate, you are left. Reborn. Stronger.
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