The Obsession That Started It All
Episode 1 of the podcast
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes (or watch the video!)
I couldn’t stop listening to the song.
Not just any song. The one that reminded me of my ex. And not just any ex… the one I’d never really gotten over.
Maybe part of the reason I’d never gotten over him was because I couldn’t stop listening to the song.
To call it merely “a song,” though, seems to do it a disservice. It was a beautiful, entrancing melody—one that he had written, and he was singing… about me.
Missing me. Loving me. Regretting the way he’d handled things. And he’d keep saying it for as long as I’d keep playing it. He could mean it forever, if I’d let him.
Maybe most people have totally normal addictions—alcohol, junk food, cigarettes… But not me. I was addicted to him—or to the memory of him. The idea of him. The possibility of him.
I’d always wanted the chance to finish what we’d started all those years ago. He was either the one who got away, or the one I’d never really had. The lack of resolution is part of what kept me hooked.
The first time I heard the song, it provided me tremendous closure and validation—because it was 5 minutes of him admitting that he was struggling with all those feelings, too.
But the next 10,000 times I played it just inched me closer and closer to wanting to see him again.
The exact conversion, in case you’re wondering, was one emotional inch per play. And 10,000 inches is pretty far to let yourself wander down the trail of “What ifs.” In fact, it’s just shy of rock bottom.
So I wouldn’t let myself reach 10,001.
I had to find a way to stop.
I couldn’t put just that one song off limits.
Everyone knows that when you try not to think about something, it becomes all you can think about. Simply telling myself not to listen to it anymore would feel like someone was dangling it on a string.
No, if I wanted to avoid that song, I’d need to hide it amongst a million other songs, while distracting myself with different music. I’d need to go on a music diet.
…Again.
Just like I’d done several years prior—when I couldn’t stop listening to another song I associated with him.
Seriously, what’s wrong with me? I’ve never understood why it was so hard for me to let go of that relationship.
Existential crisis aside, I now had an exciting project to focus on.
(No, not therapy. How cliché! Why work on my attachment issues when I could work on a music project?)
I was going to spend a year listening only to music I was unfamiliar with. Everything I’d ever heard before was off limits.
And the perfect milestone was right around the corner: My birthday. That’s when I’d kick things off. Until then, I’d savor every musical morsel.
I couldn’t listen to everything.
By the time I finally committed to this endeavor, I only had about 72 hours to feast on my most beloved songs. We’re talking about all the music I’d ever heard in all my 37 years. Three days wasn’t even enough to properly evaluate what those treasured tracks might be.
I figured whichever artists, albums, and songs came to mind first must be the ones that meant the most to me—at least at that point in my life. I ravaged my hotel room for some scrap paper and a pen, and scribbled as many favorite bands as I could think of.
I kept that pen, by the way. Hotels want you to take them. It’s called advertising.
My Spotify mainstays poured across the page—almost automatically, as though they’d been stored in that pen. Queens of the Stone Age. Balance & Composure. Arctic Monkeys. The Beatles. Before I knew it, there was barely any paper left.
Then, I broke the list into priorities.
Whose entire catalogue do I already know by heart? I can wait another year without them if I have to, because I’ve memorized every nuance anyway. Who are the artists that resonate with me the most at this point in my life? I’m gonna need some quality time with them. Who are the favorites from former chapters? Maybe I don’t need them as much now as I did then.
The menu for my music feast. (Typed below in case you can’t decipher my handwriting.)
Big Wreck
aKing
Queens of the Stone Age
Balance & Composure
Metric
Chevelle
Breaking Benjamin
Jimi Hendrix
Wild Belle
The Doors
The Beatles
Jets to Brazil
[The Song]
The Byrds
The Grass Roots
Oldies
Everything else
Arctic Monkeys
The next three days were filled with as much music as I could possibly cram into them. Every chronological crevice had a purpose—and a soundtrack. And the last 5 minutes? Those were for The Song. Because I was pathetic like that.
Maybe therapy should be next year’s project…
Suddenly, I was 38, and I was starting over. Thirty-eight-year-old me was not going to be pathetic. I was going to be… curious. Inquisitive. Bold, dammit.
Oh yeah, I was also going to take copious notes throughout this iteration of the music diet. I wanted to document every track I missed, and why. I wanted to log all my discoveries and realizations. I was ready to go full Mad Scientist about it.
This time, I wanted to learn, once and for effing all (twice for all?) how to leave that part of my past behind. What better way than to leave all of the parts at once?
How about you?
Have you ever had to put a song off-limits because it reminded you of an ex? How did the music make you feel? What do you think would happen if you listened to the song now? Share your thoughts below :)