Learning to Love Music After a Breakup (or how I fell back in love with bluegrass music again)

When you fall in love with someone, and live the subsequent relationship, there always seems to be music that becomes the living, breathing soundtrack to the heartbeat of your life. It’s not just the songs themselves, per se, but the story that is woven between the songs. The acoustic quilt of memories created by voices, instruments, half-notes, and poetic verses. That soundtrack becomes a scrapbook of sounds that tells the story of two lovers who found each other in the universe, created a world of their own, and sometimes, ultimately, end up dancing to the tune of their own songs, sometimes sharing their individual favorite tunes, and sometimes, finding their way dancing on their own again. So, what happens when those lovers end up dancing on their own? What happens to the soundtrack of their life? What happens to that visceral feeling when you hear the first three notes of the song that played when you fell in love, or walked down the aisle, or held your child for the first time? What happens to the song you listened to as you drove through the mountains together, or drove to the hospital to have your first child together? What happens to the songs you turned up to drown out crying babies and crying adults? What happens to the song you danced to after making up from your first fight? And what happens to the songs you played in the background while you held each other close and kissed each other’s faces? What happens to the music you loved with a person you don’t love anymore?

In my life, it was bluegrass music. For a decade, the soundtrack to my life was a thumping beat of an upright bass, pluck of a banjo, strum of a guitar, and chop of a mandolin. For a decade, I clapped and danced along to the bluegrass greats, and with the constant background of a finger-picked guitar dancing through the air like fairy dust, our home and life rang out with the sweet sound of bluegrass beats.

Just the other day, the morning temperature dropped to Fall levels, and when I stepped outside to take the kids to the playground, a faint, but strong melodic banjo rhythm started in the back of my head. Almost like a rush, my heart skipped a beat and I stopped on the stairs. As I took a breath of the cool air, my heart started to race as the rhythm in my head picked up pace and followed a traditional bluegrass pattern. “New River Train!” I exclaimed. And there, in the middle of my driveway, the bluegrass came back to me.

You see, I haven’t listened to bluegrass music in two years. Everytime I would turn it on, my stomach would churn and I’d feel nauseous as the music would pick up, my hand turning off the song before my head could even process what was happening. A few times every few months, I would try another song, Tony Rice’s Church Street Blues or Sierra Hull’s Don’t Pick Me Up, and my stomach would lurch. I’d turn off the song and a tear would form in the back of my eye.

Here’s the thing, it’s not that the music made me sad - yes, we shared this beautiful soundtrack full of life memories - but, that wasn’t what made my heart ache. My heart ached because I felt like I couldn’t listen to this music because it wasn’t mine. Sure, I grew up with bluegrass within my family of origin, however the majority of the bluegrass that became the soundtrack to my life had been introduced to me and shared. I didn’t listen to most of this music before the relationship, so it wasn’t mine, it was merely shared. What happens to that shared music - the music you were introduced to by your partner - when you’re no longer in that partnership? For me, I felt like I didn’t have the right to listen to it - it wasn’t my music, just another byproduct of loss. My brain couldn’t compute that I was allowed to continue to enjoy this music after the relationship is over. But, here’s the thing - the relationship may be over, but the music…thrives. And, while we shared so much of the music - I fell in love with bluegrass on my own, in my own heart - and the music didn’t disappear because the relationship ended.

So, on this crisp morning, the New River Train came bounding back. All of that afternoon, while cooking and cleaning, I fell back in love with bluegrass. I played my old faves over and over again. I let my heart open up to the lyrics and melodies, and rhythms and nearly cried every time a new song started playing. The music we share with our past loves is unlike any other music in our life, as the actual vibrations from the songs set the tone for your love and both charge and change the energy of the air around you. But, if you choose, if you desire, that energy still remains long after the love dissipates, and if you want - can be part of the energy you bring into the next phase of your life. Your Fresh Start can include music from your old life…it’s not a betrayal of your healing journey, and it’s not their music for keeps, it’s simply the sweet sounds that helped create the gorgeous human you are today.