dreaming with a broken heart

I think it's safe to say that the last 7 days have been close to most difficult of my life. Granted, if a breakup is one of the worst things I've experienced, my life thus far has been less than tragic. Still, my mood these last few days has affected all of my actions, my friendships, my relationships, my health. I'm really feeling it, if that makes any sense.

In all of this, though, I have turned to the music of John Mayer. Along with my friends' and families' valiant and (mostly) appreciated attempts to lift me from the darkness I have found myself in, Mayer's music has kept me sane, for the most part.

I went out the other day and bought myself an Ipod. Oddly enough, it was supposed to a gift from my guy that was never exchanged. I thought buying it would make me feel better, or at the very least lead me to accept that this is the end. It did neither, but I have it nonetheless. Currently, the only thing on it besides the 3 episodes of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog are the studio albums of John Mayer. I have gone through each of them extensively, listening intently to each lyric, trying to extract meaning from the words to allow some comfort to seep in.

I have stuck most closely with his second album, "Heavier Things," because it is decidedly more melancholy; you will occasionally hear me say, after a trying day "I'm in the mood for heavier things." This my friends, is a year for heavier things. So far, it has worked in waves, at times offering moments of hope (the "I refuse to believe that my life's gonna be just some string of incompletes never to lead me to anything remotely close to a home life" of Home Life, the "I believe that my life's gonna see the love I give return to me" of Wheel). Other times it has hit like a sucker punch (pretty much every lyric of "Split Screen Sadness"), dragging me deeper into a state of utter hopelessness. But at least I know someone can relate.

And that's the beauty and the power of music that has made me fall so deeply in love with it over the years: the realization that someone else has been where you are. That the feelings you're feeling are not as solitary as you've been so quick to believe. This applies to me with Mayer in particular, but music in general as well. As I try to muddle through this particularly painful junction, I look to his music for understanding, acceptance, comfort, and, above all else, hope. The message in music is simple: you will be OK. In the words of John Mayer himself, "pain throws your heart to the ground, love turns the whole thing around."

At the same time, there are songs that hold such meaning to you, whether it be lyrically or because they remind you of a person, or a moment in time that's upsetting or hard to recall. For me that song is "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol. One of my first memories of our time together as an official couple was a trip to NYC. It was an exhausting, rainy day and I struggled to remain awake on the car ride home. It was late, I was tired, but the song came on and I remembered how hearing it had made me think of him earlier. I took my hand in his, placed my head on his shoulder and sang the words. It became "our" song, his ringtone despite the cliche, when it came on in the car or at work I would always smile, humming aloud, all the while thinking of him. Now, the opening notes alone are like daggers in my heart. They pull me back unwillingly to the good times we shared. Much as I loved every one of them, they break my heart now because there will be no additions to them. The memories stop here. The music stops here.

But it doesn't. Just as I am expressing my emotions through my writing to alleviate some of the pain, a songwriter somewhere is working out chords to a story much like mine. Together, we will find a way to channel the pain and make it into something beautiful. And then, when the fog lifts and the happiness returns, hopefully we'll be able to write about that too.

Here are the lyrics to "Split Screen Sadness." Once you've read them, I think you'll understand what I'm talking about.


"Split Screen Sadness" from Heavier Things
And I don't know where you went when you left me but
Says here in the water you must be gone by now
I can tell somehow
One hand on the trigger of a telephone
Wondering when the call comes
Where you say it's alright
You got your heart right

Maybe I'll sleep inside my coat and
Wait on the porch 'til you come back home
Oh, right
I can't find a flight

We share the sadness
Split screen sadness

Two wrongs make it all alright tonight

All you need is love is a lie cause
We had love but we still said goodbye
Now we're tired, battered fighters

And it stings when it's nobody's fault
Cause there's nothing to blame at the drop of your name
It's only the air you took and the breath you left

Maybe I'll sleep inside my coat and
Wait on the porch 'til you come back home
Oh, right
I can't find a flight
So I'll check the weather wherever you are
Cause I wanna know if you can see the stars tonight
It might be my only right

We share the sadness
Split screen sadness

I called
Because
I just
Need to feel you on the line
Don't hang up this time
And I know it was me who called it over but
I still wish you'd fought me 'til your dying day
Don't let me get away

Cause I can't wait to figure out what's wrong with me
So I can say this is the way that I used to be
There's no substitute for time
Or for the sadness
Split screen sadness
We share the sadness