Everybody’s Doing it: The Breakup
Strangely I have been giving out Breakup advice to several of my friends lately. Not one, not two, but at least three of my friends that I know of (and maybe more) have been going through the painful process of breaking up after being with someone for several years.
Perhaps this is the antithesis of the other trend of this summer, which is starting to see more and more close friends getting married. I suppose there are seasons for everything.
Meanwhile, talking things out over email or phone, I have come to a sort of definitive list of breakup advice and resources that I’ve been forced to assemble and I’d like to share with you now. Have something to share? Send me your best breakup song, advice, videos, or comment below!
This American Life Episode 339: Breakup.
Writer Starlee Kine on what makes the perfect break-up song and whether really sad music can actually make you feel better. Plus, an eight-year-old author of a book about divorce and other stories from the heart of heartbreak. Preview here.
This video of the Arcade Fire playing Wake Up with David Bowie at the helm:
Related: This one is kind of epic as well. Arcade Fire with U2 covering Joy Division? What?
“Love will tear us apart” indeed.
Watch this stupid video of a great song and laugh at it but also cry. I love the description “Just me miming…”. The song is “I don’t want to get over you” by The Magnetic Fields. I recommend you buy their 69 Love Songs album and allow yourself to blast this in your car with the windows down.
Watch the web TV show series Quarterlife because there are some great themes and its smart and will make you feel normal and good. Let me know when you do this so that I can watch it with you.
TEARS, IDLE TEARS.
BY ALFEED TENNYSON.
This song is found in the “Princess” when the three disguised youths are discovered.
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
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Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge ;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken’d birds
To dying ears when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign’d
On lips that are for others ; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ;
O, death in life, the days that are no more.