The Broken Heart Songs

I read Dadan's entry about his broken heart song. I remembered mine. I have four official theme songs for each time my heart was crushed, shattered and broken into pieces. (Well, it’s not as bad as it sounds.)

So, to the people whom I had the privileges of having my heart broken and healed, I sincerely thank you. Thank you for growing the seed of love that if only nature shall be more kind, perhaps that seed shall produce a love story that was worthy of a fairy tale. Or,… may be not.

I bestowed thee the songs of love that had accompanied me during the heartbreaking days of healing. Songs of remedy for a broken heart.

1998
One True Friend
Bette Middler

“Though love may break, it never dies.
It changes shape, through changing eyes.
What I denied, I now can see.
You always were the light inside of me.”

The first time my heart got broken was, well, the easiest to heal. Why? I think that was because I never lose ‘the one’ I fell in love with, in fact our relationship became one of the most precious relationships I possess, till now. We still love and care about each other so much (I hope you do feel the same, you know who).

They say, first love never dies, I think I believe so. It simply changes shape. So did my love. from the beginning I knew all along that I was doomed to fall in love even when we hadn’t met. Just talking over the phone and exchanging emails were enough for me to be too comfortable I was ready to try for anything, even a long distance relationship. Reality bit hard. But I was healed fast for I know that though we may never become lovers, our bond is too strong to deny and I need not be scared to be left by my object of affection. We simply change the way we see each other and everything is great ever since. Eight years and stronger than ever. My dearest, I love you for being tremendously kind to my heart. Thank you for being the wiser soul.

1999
I love you
Sarah McLachlan

"and I forgot to tell you I love you
and the night's too long
and cold here without you
I grieve in my condition
for I cannot find the strength to say
I need you so"

The second one took the longest time to heal. Perhaps because it was the first intense relation I ever had and I simply didn’t know how to manage the feeling after the break up. But we’re still together, and we are still the best of friends.

It happened one night when we were parted for a month. I was told from a long distance call that my lover found someone else who cared, and I was so far way and the situation, the choices, were so confusing. I pretended to be strong and made the decision to break up for both of us. Inside, I was crumbled slowly. And as I was driving along Sabang Street a month after the break and listening to the lamenting voice of Sarah Mclachlan, I gave in and let the grieve took hold of me. After a month in denial. I parked my car on the street side, broke down and cried. Alone, in the middle of the day. Stung by the heat of an aching heart.

2003
Broken Vow
Lara Fabian

“I let you go
I let you fly
Why do I keep on asking why
I let you go
Now that I found
A way to keep somehow
More than a broken vow”

I have to admit that I hate to talk about the third one. The one relationship that, if I have a power to undo things, I wish to undo this one. The only relationship that becomes, if I may use the word, ‘meaningless’. The year I was stamped as a total fool. Fool. Fool. Fool. How could I be such a fool? I have no idea. I still wonder sometimes, how I could, within those eleven months of intense, and I really meant ‘intense’, relationship, fail to learn and understand the sort of person that I was in love with. It was like having a relationshop with an imaginary lover that was the creation of my own delusion. Man, I was such a fool in love.

And this person became the only person that once I was in love with, but I don’t care the whereabouts now. For me, the so called relationship had gone to oblivion. And I never wish to have anything to do with that person. I just don’t see the point. Not that I was still upset or angry, gosh no! I never stay mad long to others, but it was the other way around. I was the one who could still find it a little bit hard to forgive myself. I who believe in logical explanation and reasoning could fall for such a cheap trick, for living in the disguise and pretense of a deceiving relationship for such a long time. I should have known better. But I failed myself, and I still learn to forgive myself for such terrible mistake. Till the very day.

And the song that gave me the chill was actually not a brand new song, but rather an old one I’ve already liked but during August 2003, provided me with the most appropriate emotional outlet. And the following morning after our last conversation that ended with accusation, three weeks after the breakup, I sat alone at the office listening to the cry of Lara Fabian. Looking out of the window and the greenery of Manggala’s park with skycrappers touching the sky at afar, my heart was plunging down and shattered into pieces.

2004
Songbird
Eva Cassidy

“For you there'll be no crying
For you the sun will be shining
’Cause I feel that when I'm with you
It's alright, I know it's right

And the songbirds keep singing
Like they know the score
And I love you, I love you, I love you
Like never before

To you, I would give the world
To you, I'd never be cold
‘Cause I feel that when I'm with you
It's alright, I know it's right

And the songbirds keep singing
Like they know the score
And I love you, I love you, I love you
Like never before
Like never before”

The last time I fell in love, well, it was another thing I couldn’t see coming, just like any other love. I blame it on the work of ‘x factor’, a catalyst of a chemistry reaction at work, something magic that you can never fathom its logic. But circumstance, personal indictment, self-assessment, and a thousand obscure reasons I yet to grasp the meaning of, plotting against me to try and make a story of love to materialize.

The story of the fourth broken heart went on like the first one. I fell in love, it wouldn’t work, yet we become friends. This time, it was for reasons I could not yet to fathom. I mean, I understood the part-I-fell in love-I-expressed-it-I-got-rejected-thing. What I failed to truly understand, or refuse to accept, is the reason. How can you reject someone for being ‘better’ than your expectations? (I hope I’m not mistaken in interpreting the reason) I never feel that I’m such a ‘better than the rest’ kind of person. I love a person for what that person is, nothing less nothing more.

But alas, I didn’t fight back. My previous relationship taught me that, well yes, it got purpose after all. So yes, I learn something alright. I don’t want to have a relationship with someone who is not comfortable of being the real person with me and sees me as competitor or someone who has too much to handle. It will lead to a disaster. My ex-lover used to have that sort of ‘unworthy’ feeling but yet arrogantly hide behind the phrase, “I am what I am, take it or leave it” and never let any wind of change breezes through the vein and brings new perspectives. And the relationship flowed into the gutter.

The song that snapped me from realizing that I fell in love with someone I could never have belongs to the lovely late Eva Cassidy. Her voice brought new realm in that cold morning in February. A realm where a love is lost before it has ever begun. But I know, it’s alright for even I can only love from afar, it’s a love worth nurturing. Just like the first time I fell in love, I simply need to change the way I see the person, and the love shall take the form of the way the eyes do. For love is like water and the eyes are its container.

But now, we have become friends, dear friends—at least the way I see it, that I shall cherish in days to come. And though sometimes I have to admit, a tingle still pricks on my heart and left me ponder, “what if,” I am content with what I got.

Until I love again.

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