The Breaking of a Love

I am the person trapped in a love for one alone, running round and round for them until my feet lose their grip and I tumble with too much momentum, left to eat the dust I kicked while they speed on ahead.

These six songs will reveal the journey, however long and torturous, I trekked while finding and losing the love I thought was eternal.

From wide-eyed naivety to heartbreak.

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1. How Do I Get There? by Deana Carter

"We had always been the best of friends." Acquainted quite early, spent time together, laughed continuously. Things were fun, pure, unbridled.

Then "suddenly, from somewhere out of the blue," something clicked, and I saw "a different light around" him. I realized the enjoyment had not been amplified by chance. There was a feeling within me I had not brought attention to.

It was weird at first, fearing he "probably thought I'd lost my mind," but eventually, after thinking it through, I didn't want any other. "I couldn't wait any longer" for the feeling was "getting stronger." I'd do anything for him, "climb any mountain he wanted me to climb."

All I asked for was him to "give me a sign," anything that I could latch onto, something substantial instead of mixed signals. "The perfect combination was his heart and mine," I was sure about it.

Deana Carter voices exactly how I felt - every single inch of it: the uncontrollable obsession that bubbled once I realized how much I loved him. I thought words could not describe how I was feeling until I heard this song.

2. Reminiscing by Little River Band

After marinating in my newly discovered feelings, things began to shift towards something promising. He gave me better signs, reasons to believe we were both "talking about a lifetime plan." The one problem I faced was actually saying "I want to build my world around you."

We went out more often than before which, by every means available, became fuel for my desires. The world turned to what I had wished, night after night with him.

"We were hand-in-hand" when it happened, when the light of the moon kissed both our cheeks. I will never forget his face, how sprightly he felt in that moment. In my mind I thought "I can't hardly wait" for what the future holds.

Little River Band, being one of my favorite bands of all time, achieved what very very very few have done: they bottled up the anticipatory feeling of someone searching for a present but hidden love. That is what underpinned my life at the time, and it is what reminds me of the joy of finding what love that was hidden.

3. Beautiful Night by Paul McCartney

As a joint being, we could find no fault. "Nothing felt so good" when we were together, just as when he first said yes. Ecstasy lined all the moments we shared. Every night felt like "a beautiful night for love," and they were, I can assure you.

It was understood that "things can go wrong," but we trusted in love to ensure things went right whenever they could. There was "no more wondering why" we hadn't united earlier for the time was perfect. I made for him a night of love and care, and he "made it a beautiful night for me."

We shared what joy we could find and more. Not to sound too full of myself but it was "such a wonderful sight for lovers of love to behold." Every person who believed in love and all its connotations and nuances, saw our love and sighed contently, knowing it was possible.

Paul McCartney, arguably one of the greatest musicians of all time, released this song solo and, from listening to it over and over again, it speaks volumes to me. He explores what it is to be in-love, what makes us crazy, what makes us want. He truly understands what it is to be a human in-love.

4. Wildfire - SYML

There was desperation when things turned sour. I knew from certain signs that things were breaking. I tried tricking it to turn back the time, "sometimes we break so beautiful," I said finding some kind of light in the clouded shadow approaching.

He thought himself the problem. I pleaded sense into him, "you're not a curse, you're not too much." I told him, "you are needed here, you are enough," but he did not listen.

Eventually, in the heat of the moment, he ended things. Though I was devastated, I held it together for his sake. Before we parted ways, "I breathed him in" one last time, "so sweet and powerful," and it pained me "like a wildfire burning up inside my lungs."

SYML, a different artist to the first three, discovers the troubles and suffering of noticing the deterioration of a relationship. His writing inspired me to find hope (though evidently fruitless) to try save what I had found.

5. How Can You Mend a Broken Heart? by Bee Gees

Alone in a dark room, questions filled my mind. I pleaded to anyone and everyone who would listen, "please help me mend my broken heart." My fingers interlaced and head bowed low, "I could not see tomorrow" in all its unexpected torment. What I knew was that it would be lonesome.

Everything came crumbling down like a worn-away wall of stolen bricks. Sanity was forsaken, reason cast out. I locked myself in my room for days on end, searching for an answer to why he had done what he had done.

In my brooding, I realized something crucial, a broken heart is as natural and immovable as the sun or the rain. The questions of "how can you stop the sun from shining?" or "how can you stop the rain from falling down?" did not antagonize my mind for long.

The Bee Gees have played a large part in my life, describing to me the issue with what I have felt. This song is no different. I understood, after listening to the song, just how absurd it was to think I could fix what had been broken. It is as irreparable as unfallen rain or a cold sun. A broken heart should heal on its own.

6. Baby Come Back by Player

By this time, I had succumbed to the grief, wishing "to get him off of my mind." I spent "all my nights, all my money going out on the town," wasting away what livelihood I had gained in the time we were together. But "trying to forget him was just a waste of time."

I screamed in my mind, "baby come back," calling for his touch, his words to caress my ears with his signature grace. "Any kind of fool could see," there was something between the two of us, but reality can be cruel.

Through the pain, I wore a "mask of false bravado," keeping up a smile "that hides a tear." I felt fake, false, as I walked around, showing off how I thought I was OK when my innards were being ripped from within.

And now we reach the present, the time where words are becoming the history of my hopeless romantic agony. Every time I see him, "I get that empty feeling again how I wish to God that he was here" with me. "I just can't live without him."

Player spoke the truth more times than naught, and this song is one of those times. One wonders how a group of geniuses found each other but I guess it was meant to be. At least one thing in this world was fated, for my own life be forfeited from fate all together.