And So It Is...

When my first boyfriend and I broke up, Damien Rice really helped me heal.

At the time I was going through major changes along with the heartbreak. I had given up on living in Gainesville and moved back to Miami into my father's house, and was left alone by many of my friends and relatives to wallow in my sadness.

I had never lived with my dad before, and with my new found heartbreak, I began adjusting to a new lonely kind of life. I didn't have friends down south, they all had moved away for school, I wasn't going to school, so I struggled meeting new people, and I was working at Publix with a bunch of old people, so most of my time was spent alone, left to grieve my many losses.

I thought my world was over with the loss of my first boyfriend. For awhile I couldn't understand why we had broken up, and how someone who had told me I'd be the mother of his children, could then tell me he was leaving. Granted we were 17 and 18, so there was a sense of innocent youth attached to us, but my world was shook without him. I couldn't breath, I couldn't eat, and each and every thought contained some kind of notion of him.

At the same time, the movie Closer came out, and Damien Rice (who is all over the movie's soundtrack), exploded onto the scene with his album 'O.' I remember the first time I had ever heard one of his songs. I was sitting in my dad's living room watching Vh1 videos before work, and Rice's video for 'Blower's Daughter' came on. It caught my ear the moment I heard it, and brought me to tears instantly. It was such a relief to hear a song that seemed to capture the utter sadness I was feeling.

Soon I bought his album, and began to soak myself entirely into it. From January (my first boyfriend and I broke up in late November, and stopped talking in Decemberish) to early summer, I had Rice's album 'O' on repeat. Over and over again I listened to his music and grieved my lost love. I endured the loneliest time of my life. Rice was angry, I was angry. Rice was missing, I felt lost, He loved someone who was gone, I loved someone who would never be mine again.

Damien Rice gave me the important grieving period I needed to help me move on from what was lost. Through all the tears, journal entries, and many walks alone, Rice and I relieved ourselves from the misery that surely would have stayed longer had I not submerged myself into the grief.

Overtime, the heartache lessened. Granted my next actual boyfriend wouldn't actually appear for another four years, but I was able to date again.

As I struggle now with another sense of loss, Damien Rice breaks back onto my scene. I am brought back to wistful March days when I would lay on my bed, allowing my tears to stain the pillows as I grieved the loneliness attached to my first boyfriend.

What inspired me to write this blog entry was hearing one of Rice's newer songs, 'Unplayed Piano' as I was making chocolate chip pancakes this morning. I had my itunes opened on shuffle to play music while I cooked, and as Rice's song played, a distant ache resurfaced. The ache that I thought had eased as Rice and I grieved long ago, came back with a sudden attack on my heart and mind. As I began hearing his familiar tune, soon memories of him and I swirled.

Again I am understanding the lyrics and melodies that capture my heart's tangles. They express my tears in words that help to reveal the sudden pain of loosing someone I love. Granted it is under different circumstances, and he and I are in an altogether different situation than what my first boyfriend and I were in, but the feeling is similar. If anything, the struggle to relieve myself from the grief is even more intense.

Even though many people criticize Rice's music as being too depressing to enjoy, it takes someone who is just as bitterly depressed to appreciate the lyrical composition of his music. Damien Rice gives anyone who is listening, the ability to revel in their misery, express their parallel situations through song, and intensify the brilliancy of every memory of that lost person, in order to understand better their attachment to their sudden loss of love.

I believe he isn't lost, but I can't help myself relating again to Rice's melody. The violin's strings pull me back, and emotionally bring me back to the same bed, left there alone again to shed another tear for another one I loved.

"The Blowers Daughter"

And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

Did I say that I loathe you?
Did I say that I want to
Leave it all behind?

I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind...
My mind...my mind...
'Til I find somebody new