A few years ago a lot of my friends got married just as my long time girlfriend was leaving me. It was a time of unbearable solitude and I wondered how I could physically survive it. Not that I sat around staring contemplatively at razor blades or sleeping pills; it literally felt like my body would cease functioning, that I would collapse mid-stride onto the streets of Brooklyn and join the taxi-crushed pigeons like the animal I was.
Remarkably, my heart and surrounding organs continued to function.
Coping.
Years later, many of those same people are getting divorced or breaking up and now they turn to me for some kind of advice, or worse, solace. My old college friend Lisa IM’ed me last week. She had left her long time boyfriend and asked me what she had to look forward to. I dated my ex, Reni, for six years and, as I told Lisa, after the break up I thought about her every single day for two years. It was midday and I had caught Lisa in a rare moment of sobriety. She emitted a low groan, “Fuuuuuck.”
This American Life had a great piece last year on break ups, and specifically, break up songs. I would suggest you listen to if you’ve been there or are currently residing there.
And in that vein, my solitary piece of advice to Lisa or anyone else limping through the streets of Splitsville would be: music. I made countless break up mixes for Reni which I never sent her. They just sat in an ever-expanding iTunes playlist. S0 here they are, for the world, lumped together as one. Yes, it’s Mike Lavoie’s Stupid Break Up Playlist. Because at the end of those days when you go home to nothing and nobody, when the tales of the trials and successes of your day rot in your brain, when a pillow is the only thing that holds your weight, the only words that matter are the ones with a soundtrack.
Enjoy. Or whatever. You won’t die.
Love,
Mike