If I’ve learned anything this fall, it’s that therapy won’t get you through heartbreak half as well as country music. Hear me out: I’ve never been a huge fan of country music until the past few months. Now anyone who saw my Spotify would take me for a cowgirl, dust-covered-boots-and-cattle-drives type girl, rather than the Converse-and-Chocolate-Chip-Cookie-Cream-Freeze girl I am when the radio is off.
When a boy breaks your heart, my best advice is to listen to Morgan Wallen, Bailey Zimmerman, and Luke Combs. I won’t rehash my breakup here– that’s nobody’s problem but mine. However, I can say for me, country music is the perfect blend of provoking sympathy to help you process the loss, anger to help you move on, and euphoria to help you see a silver lining in those horrific gray clouds. When I need to wallow, I listen to Morgan Wallen’s “Wasted on You,” so I can cry out that I “wasted on you, all of this time and all of this money, all of these sorries I don’t owe you honey, all of these miles on this Chevy and prayers in a pew, all them days I spent wasted on you.” If I want to get angry, I can listen to Bailey Zimmerman’s “Religiously” and take the side of the woman he left, replacing “You” with “I” in all the lyrics… “[I] brought [you] to God, and [you] put me through hell, [I] was all about us, [you] were all about [your]self… What kind of man could lose a woman like that? If [your] soul could be forgiven, [would you] give it all back?…” . I’ve shed plenty of tears to these lyrics, a thousand shattered dreams coalescing on my cheeks, dripping to the pluck of the guitar strings.
However, at some point, my self-pity subsided and I knew I had to move on for real this time. For this, I listened to Luke Combs’s “When It Rains It Pours.” The song doesn’t present a false narrative that he is perfectly okay after his breakup, but instead shows that there are unexpected silver linings in the situation. His ex thought lottery tickets were a waste of time, “Then I won a hundred bucks on a scratch-off ticket… bought two 12-packs and a tank of gas with it.” His ex broke his heart, but he lived his life to the fullest and hit a huge lucky streak, and all the better, “…I ain’t gotta see my Ex-future-mother-in-law anymore, Oh Lord, when it rains it pours.” When it rains it pours to me means that once one good thing starts to happen the good chain keeps on rolling. It is karma in action, the silver linings shining bright enough to reveal themselves in everyday life (however redneck Luke’s may be).
Country music is more than a twangy tone, or boys bragging about beer and bucks– though that is a big part of it, admittedly. It is music that can speak to my soul on the deepest level. It speaks to my pain, my hopelessness when future plans fail, my pride that is hurt, my spirit I still search for, my peace I am beginning to find. So if you or someone you know is dealing with a heartbreak right now, therapy can be a good option, sure. But a good country playlist is a lot cheaper, and just might be the thing that helps you through. It certainly has been for me.
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Life and Lemons 