Every relationship has its soundtrack. It starts the moment
you meet on the dance floor, fist pumping to tired Journey tunes. It grows
along the miles of lengthy road trips and romantic getaways. It builds as you
climax during sweaty sex. Then it haunts you in your sleep like that lady at
Wal-Mart with the one eye cocked in a different direction.
I’m suffering from what I’d like to call harmonic hurt. The
affliction involves the painful plucking of the heartstrings with every note of
every song I experienced with an old flame. Currently, I’m working to silence
that soundtrack — I’ve put the CDs away, altered a few Pandora stations,
deleted the “Romance” and “Take it like you mean it” playlists from my iTunes.
But then some sappy Feist ballad sneaks onto the airwaves at Target, and there
I am, sobbing into an Isaac Mizrahi jumpsuit. With all this talk of music
“therapy” in the world of psychology, why hasn’t someone created a padded cell
where jilted lovers can go and hurl themselves against walls while looping
Radiohead’s In Rainbows? (Oh, Thom Yorke, how I love and
hate thee.)
To hold me over until that happens, I’ve come up with a few
tried-and-hopefully-soon-to-be-true methods of healing the traumatized eardrum
— because even though listening to Sia right now is like masturbating with
sandpaper covered in images of my ex-girlfriend, I can’t imagine never being
able to hear that Aussie’s sultry voice again. So, here are some steps to
recovering from the aural scarring of a failed relationship:
• Treat the songs of your relationship like Ted Williams —
put them on ice for a while and hope that they will eventually live again.
• Don’t ever introduce “your”
songs to a new love interest in the hopes of experiencing some restorative
power. You will only cry.
• Tell new love interests that your favorite artists are Bob
Oakes and Judy Swallow. A soundtrack of National Public Radio guarantees total
numbness while you heal your wounds. (If they’re too dense to recognize these
names, you don’t want to date them anyway.)
• If a new love interest happens to play one of “your” old
songs, act calm and then tell them it reminds you of the Holocaust. Hopefully
they will be sensitive to your needs and not want to condone Hitler.
• Be prepared for the unexpected moment of sabotage when one
of “your” songs is played in a Verizon commercial or between innings at the
ballpark. Casually stick your fingers in your ears and hum a few bars of the
soundtrack from The Shining.
• Unless you are a hard-core masochist, don’t
ever have sex with a new flame to one of “your” old songs. If you
do, make sure it’s from behind.
• Keep a couple of your favorite songs (and maybe even one
band) entirely to yourself. Imagine how much more painful the Bee Gees would be
if they reminded you of someone.
• Listen to soulless techno until you are reduced to a
drooling zombie that finds emotional fulfillment in a glow stick.
Still, you must prepare to be caught off guard by a gut-wrenching
chord progression, the sound of lyrics once whispered in your ear, the haunting
repetition of a chorus.
Clearly, I’m not past that point yet, seeing as I almost
projectile vomited in a coworker’s office at the recognition of a Bon Iver tune
coming from her speakers.
“I hate losing artists in a divorce,” I said. And it was in her
advice that I have to keep faith. “Yeah, but the artists always come back to
you,” she promised.
Even if the girl didn’t.
Cue world’s tiniest violin.
Jeannie Greeley is a freelance writer.
Send your upbeat song suggestions to jeannieg@comcast.net.
