Wow, what a journey it’s been! From betrayal to rejection, I’ve been through quite a lot of pain and heartbreak. If you’ve been reading since the first post of Simply Heartbreak, you may remember that I planned to release a new song that reflects on a time of heartbreak in my life by the end of my column. I’m happy to say that I have indeed kept my promise, as my new song “Back to You” comes out today! I wrote this song with a really talented friend of mine, Erica Chen (you can check out her column here), and I’m excited to be finally sharing it with all of you.
“Back to You” is about the pain and heartbreak from a past relationship. It’s about knowing that something is not right, yet finding myself going back to it, no matter how hurtful it continues to be. At the beginning of this relationship, I thought that we were meant to be together, and it made me really happy that I met this person. However, as time went on, and teenage drama and stress started building up, things got complicated and messy. I no longer felt as happy as I did before and no longer felt that the other person felt the same way about me. However, my attraction never changed, even though it felt like theirs did. I was hurt over and over again, but I would just pick myself back up, and go back to the person because I didn’t want to lose them. I didn’t think I would ever find someone as perfect.
If you’ve read my past posts, you know that I have fears about letting people down. I feel a constant need to make everyone happy, no matter how much it makes me unhappy. So, I found myself constantly hurting myself while trying to mend the relationship that was already falling apart. Even after we went our separate ways, I thought about them constantly. At the sound of each text message, I found myself back in the same place where I was consistently hurting I kept telling myself that things may change, but no matter how many times I told myself this, it never became a reality. I just found my feelings once again, thrown away in the trash. Many of these lyrics resemble my conflicted feelings and the pain I caused myself while trying to fix things.
“thought I could be strong but the memories a drawback”
“I can’t help but feel this way, always leaves me with hell to pay”
“and if our roads meet would you call out my name?”
“and I know time can’t change you, but I tell myself I can”
From this relationship, I came to realize a lot of important things that I hope you keep in mind if you’re going through something similar. Try not to let bad experiences and bad relationships ruin your life. They may become horrid memories that you flinch at or maybe they are just embarrassing tales that avoid telling. You can avoid places because you’re frightened about running into an old flame, but that’s not a good long term approach.
Instead, you can choose to look at these painful relationships as learning experiences. And I have definitely learned to. Sure, a toxic relationship is definitely not anything I would wish on my worst enemy, but it is an experience that has taught me so much about myself. I learned that if I don’t feel as happy and valued as I think I should, then I need to get out of the relationship because it’s not worth it. I’ve also learned that pain and heartbreak is unavoidable; everybody experiences it at a point in time. The only thing we can do to make things better is to find more constructive ways to cope with the pain and emotions.
Coping looks different to different people, whether it means surrounding yourself with friends and family, or listening to classic Taylor Swift songs. It doesn’t really matter because at the end of the day, only you know how to make yourself feel better. Coping with pain is something that I’ve gotten used to over the years, and I now understand that it has inspired me to write music, which has always been my safe space. It’s almost as if my paper is my therapist, and I just let out all my thoughts and feelings onto it, in the form of lyrics. Whenever I go through something happy, traumatic, or sad, the experience serves as my inspiration for a song.
So, with that. I will be concluding my column, Simply Heartbreak. This spring, I have been able to step out of my comfort zone and share things that I’ve never had the courage to share. I have been able to come to the realization that pain and heartbreak are not things to keep bottled up and hidden away, but transformed into something cathartic and healing. I hope you all enjoyed this column as much as I enjoyed writing it, and I hope that if you are struggling with similar issues, you now have the courage to confront these emotions so that you can take control of your life. I hope you enjoy my song “Back to You”, and if any of you ever need to talk and converse about heartbreak or just life, feel free to reach out to me through my IG @matthwchen.
I will leave you with that, and thank you for joining me on this heartbreakingly upbeat journey: until we meet again!
