Long story short, my longtime girlfriend recently dumped me. It's been a rough few days. I've been through a pretty big whirlwind of emotions, and if it weren't for my great friends here at college, I'd probably be half-naked running around Green River right now...
You don't know where Green River is? Are you kidding me? It's only the swankiest place in Sweetwater County.
Seriously, check it out its majesty.
All jokes aside, I really do wish my now ex-girlfriend the best. I miss her, I want to still be a part of her life, and I think she's an amazing person. To be completely honest, I wish we were still together, and I'd be back together in a heartbeat if I could. But that's not what she needs, so sadly we can't. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's move on to the good stuff. Music is scientifically proven to be better at helping you through a breakup than any other type of fiber. Since I've been a depressed shell of a man the past few days, I've spent a lot of time thinking about my... feelings, and stuff. I've come up with what I consider to be the FIVE STAGES OF BREAKUP GRIEF, and I've added a song to each stage in order to help all of you lovestruck readers get through your inconsolable sadness. Speaking of inconsolable sadness...
1. INCONSOLABLE SADNESS: The bed is my only friend.
The first stage is a bit like getting a fever. And the only prescription, is to collapse. You wake up the morning after being dumped, and suddenly every single limb feels like there is a small child attached to it. The shower beckons to wash off the morning stink, but alas, 'tis no use. You lay in bed for a few extra minutes. It feels nice. While it seems like the world is crashing down around you, you remember that despite that, you've got a bed. And gosh darn it, it sure is comfy. You decide the bed deserves a massage, and you fix its sheets and maybe even wash them. The bed sure has been good to you, always there to lap up your salty tears when the Nuggets lost, or after a particularly emotional episode of Smash.
Seriously. Why would you cancel Katherine McPhee...
Before you even realize, it's 4:00 in the afternoon, and you haven't moved. You have... no texts to read, because you've been dumped, loser. Finally the bed, being the good friend it is, motions towards the shower. It's time. You get up, reluctantly. The knob for the shower smiles, as if to say... We know your pain. Many others have come here, searching for answers. You may not find them. Regardless, we can at least drown out your teenage girl sobs and provide nice background noise as you listen to Adele.
The shower slowly goes on for a few more hours, until it becomes hard to distinguish the water coming out of the nozzle and the water coming out of your eyes like geysers. Eventually, the shower slowly begins to make the water colder and colder, as if to tell you that it's time to slowly get out and do something else. You turn of the shower and give it a warm hug. You thank it for all that it has done, then step out into the world again. You look around, a bit confused over what to do next, when out of the corner of your eye... There is the bed. With arms wide open, waiting for you to come back and cuddle again. Thus, the cycle repeats.
This stage was really hard for me. I felt like a bum whenever I'd turn down invitations from friends to party, or whenever I'd go another Fruit By the Foot binge (record- 60 in a row). There's two songs that I feel really fit the mood of this stage. The first is a lovely little ditty called "Islands" by one of my favorite bands, Young the Giant Another is "Black" by Pearl Jam. Much like this stage in real life, the songs are repetitive, and don't really make much sense to the outside world. It's hard to understand them until you find yourself in a situation that demands them. Both are songs you have to be in the mood for. In the end, both the singers, too sad to even use words anymore, resorts to a haunting oooh over the music fading out slowly. In real life, sometimes there isn't a definitive end to being sad. It eventually just gets quieter and quieter, till you can finally move on.
2. HYSTERICAL WHAT-IF'S: Oh no! She knows I think Spider-Man would beat up Batman!
If you're worried that the rest of this column will be long and drawn out, don't. The first stage is by far the hardest, and really needed the most instructions on how to get out. It's much like watching Napoleon Dynamite. At first, it seems completely unwatchable and stupid. The more views though, the easier it gets to handle. Jon Heder knows. He's been through a lot of breakups, mostly with the public over his 15 minutes of fame.
Jon Heder, pictured after one of his many breakups.
If you have an active imagination... I'm sorry. This stage won't be easy. You'll nearly drive yourself insane thinking of all the different reasons that she would break up with you. Did she cheat on me? If you aren't a compulsive Facebook stalker before this, you will be now. Every single boy that appeared with her in a picture ever becomes a suspect. Even the kindly old man sitting on the bench. Especially him. Never trust an old man. Despite how ridiculous your theories become, nothing is too outlandish in this stage. You have become the ultimate conspiracy theorist, collecting evidence everywhere you can till you can somehow shove it all together into the puzzle that it really is. Granted, it's a tumor shaped puzzle existing completely within the confines of your imagination, but it's still a puzzle.
Perhaps it's nothing she did though. Maybe it was you... Did she find out one of my embarrassing secrets that I've been hiding for so long? Did it disturb her so much that she wanted to breakup with me immediately? No... She found my ballet slippers hidden under my bed. I can't help that I want to dance! It's part of my being! It's in my soul! I'm sorry, please forgive me! The shoes don't make the man... Come back!
Curse your frail beauty!
This stage has been known to cause temporary blindness in certain subjects, due to sudden bouts of insanity. It's rough, but at least you've started to socialize again. Your friends get annoyed by you constantly spouting off nonsense, but they're glad that you've finally got out of bed again.
The song that best fits this stage is "Sail" by AWOLNATION. It doesn't make sense one teeny bit, even when you read the lyrics on their own. It seems like the thoughts of a completely insane person, which is quite appropriate for this stage. Since I'm assuming most of you have heard this song already though, I won't link the video. Instead, enjoy this cat jumping to the music. He understands your pain.
3. WALL PUNCHING ANGER: Everyone is the worst.
This stage, while the shortest, has the biggest possibilities for utter destruction. When you reach this point, you've been sad for a long time, and now you are angry. You're so angry, you could break every single stupid thing in this stupid room. You send long, drawn out text messages full of angst. You break out your cutoff jeans and fool yourself into believing you actually look good in them. The more rebellious of you have possibly even done something crazier, like getting stick on tattoos of Batman. However, the worst case I have ever heard did the unthinkable. He cracked eggs and mixed them into his ramen, in a disturbing display of sadomasochism that I still cannot get out of my head to this day.
Don't let his smile fool you. Underneath it, he hides the rage of a thousand honey badgers.
Now, your friends have likely gone from being annoyed with you to being completely terrified of walking within ten feet of you. Most people will give you a lot of space, if only because they saw what you did to that poor flower display outside the school's front door. The janitors cried for hours after viewing the damage.
The song for this stage is one called "Prayer of the Refugee" by noted punk activists Rise Against. Did they write this as a protest against sweatshops and seedy corporations using unpaid foreign workers? Yes. Am I taking it, completely warping the message of the song so that it fits a breakup? You bet your britches.
4. SHAME FILLED REGRETS: This is my fault.
We've gone from intense sadness, to hysterical sadness, to hysterical anger, and now we arrive at a more realistic emotion. This is guilt. This is where you think back on your relationship, and realize all the things you did wrong. It sucks, but it's the truth. The breakup wasn't all your fault. There's a lot of crap you did that didn't help at all.
There's not much else to say about this. You realize that you were a terrible person. You sit depressed for a few minutes. You pop in your favorite Hugh Grant movie (About a Boy!!!) and sit and watch.
Here is Hugh Grant in Stage 4 of The 6 Stages of Realizing I Starred in Music and Lyrics.
This stage does the most for emotional healing. You begin to realize that you didn't get shafted in the relationship, you didn't get treated unfairly. You just acted entitled, and now you have to suffer along with Hugh Grant and Jon Heder.
The song for this stage is "Poison and Wine" by The Civil Wars. If you don't know who they are, shame on you, because they are just about the greatest thing happening to music right now. The song really captures the feeling of being done with a relationship, but still, more than anything, wishing you could go back and fix it. But, as the greatest actor of all-time, Michael Jordan, once said in his magnum opus Space Jam: You got a lot of... a lot of... well, whatever it is, you got a lot of it.
Preach it, Michael. Preach.
5. Reluctant Resolutions.
Here is where you finally get to the end. And you realize it's just life. It sucks. But it's life. And it can only get better from here.
Ladies and gentleman, I would like to leave you with one final song. It's one that I really feel captures the emotions of closure. This is a song that is very near and dear to my heart. It is, in this writer's humble opinion, one of the greatest ever written. If I could, I would sing it to all of you right now, if only to dry your tears and bring some happiness to this cold, dark world. However, I could not do it justice. No one can, aside from the original artist. So here it is, the song that I believe should end the grieving process of every breakup.
Thanks for reading. Remember to be happy. Life is alright, when you really sit down and let yourself realize it.
