Spotify Is The Graveyard of My Past Lover and The Home to His New One
TLDR; my ex made a new Spotify account and only follows his new girl but still has all our playlists together on his old existing account. Ode to all my playlists before I say goodbye, because finally, we both let go.
I knew there was a reason I actively avoided listening to music even months after my breakup with my first love. It took me about three. I know my own sensitive, sentimental heart. I knew my own heart well enough to know what I could and couldn’t survive. We’ve all had our emotional declarations strung together by lyrics. May it be one song on repeat or many that goes on minutes to hours, on and on. I was never big on music ever since Spotify thought it was best to recommend me sad girl tumblr music at the ripe age of 12 and pulled me into a state of depression. And ever since healing from that stage of girlhood, I knew that I could never listen to Mitski the same way again, but that’s beside the point. I only ever listened to the radio, to the Top 100 Hits. But somehow, little by little, I was able to get a taste of genres that did not put me into an emotional bedrotting coma.
Everything changed when I was with him. I was blinded by the illusions of the first love. But I couldn’t really blame the sixteen year old me for wanting a love so great and grand. I’d listen to all the songs he’d play me, dissecting each lyric to find what he truly means for me. It sucks to be a romantic. But it sucks even harder being an over-thinker when it comes to these things. As I am writing this, headset plugged into the side of my Mac, I have nothing playing as anything and everything sounds inevitably devastating to me at this moment. But in those three years with him, music never sounded better. He gave me a reason to listen to music. A melody and a rhythm that so influential, it was imbedded in me. So the day we ended, I knew better than to throw myself into music, something that probably would have put a halt to my healing process, knowing well that the memory of him would haunt me.
I never actively listened to our playlists after high school. I thought maybe I outgrew them, perhaps my tastes had changed. But now I’d like to think that it was a foretelling. He began to lose me. There began many unresolved arguments, some that haven’t been settled til this day. But time and time again, stupidly in love, naive, little me let him off the hook each time, afraid of confronting him at the expense of our relationship. So badly, I wanted to keep my grip firm, swearing to the promises and loyalty he couldn’t even honor.
When I found the new account I felt insulted. Both for myself, because I was still stupidly and regrettably in love with him in this moment, and for his new girl. I wouldn’t have expected him to delete the mountains of history so fast as he was so quick to move on (unofficially 3 days, publicly 2 months, blog for another time). And it certainly did not help that he’d made a playlist while he was talking to her, within weeks after our break up, titled my name with 3 songs that made it clear that he had not moved on nor was he ready to. I knew that man. And though I am now not so completely so aware of his capabilities, given that he had cheated on me, I knew that he couldn’t bare being with her with years of me still in mind. But she found the playlist, didn’t she? We ladies make fantastic investigators, Spotify being a lukewarm place to lurk. Which is awkward, because it was through a playlist cover of hers when I found out what she looked like as her instagram was private and faceless. It was a shame. Her playlists seem like we would’ve made great friends, while that poor excuse of a man has playlists dedicated to songs he listens to at the gym why he imagines edits of himself to (ew i know im sorry).
My playlists were very intimate to me. As raw and intense as it could be for a teenage girl, but that’s what love does. It was my expression of unspoken feelings, proud declarations of loving him, words I can’t say out loud because it was all a secret from my family (blog for another time). I had to find my way to communicate them, and I did. And that didn’t go unnoticed; he made me playlists too. But I could tell, they weren’t as well thought out (all offense to him)
but if there was any love for him left, one would find them in those playlists. In dancing to Can’t Help Falling In Love during both our proms. In Zild’s Medisina and how it became ‘our’ song. In Faye Webster’s Good Way when I posted to that song on my dump, having to change the caption when he followed me. In Wave to Earth’s Homesick, a supposed dedication to the way he made me feel. In Sienna by The Marias when he’d sing and replace the title with the name of the little girl we were supposed to have together, killing me in the cruelest of ways. Those songs hold so much memories for me, my gut twists at even the very first notes of its intro.
But all pain subsides. It becomes dormant. Until eventually you forget it’s even there. Peace brushes over all the chaos that develops. That or rage, whatever the hell that man did to you. Some feeling always replaces the other. Unless someone new changes that entirely, someone who makes you hear an entirely new set of melodies. Someone who doesn’t make music seem just like noise to fill the empty gaps.
I deleted those playlists ever since, making sure what once was is no longer accessible to either of us. That love has grown and died and created space for a new playlist. Just like how he created a new space just for her. It is only for the best.
It was made only in the best interest of hearts that were once so familiar with one another to know that this tie must be cut off to truly let go.
