The Person on Your Playlist

If you tell your girlfriend that she’s as beautiful as your favorite song, she will probably feel immensely pleased with the words of affection. She might call her best girl friend on her way back home, and then subtly mention the compliment somewhere in the middle of their conversation. One of them will follow it with “touchwood”, and the conversation will slowly fade into stories of other couples who could not make their relationships work. They will discuss how they could always see that the love between the couples in question wouldn’t last. “Understanding is important”, they’ll conclude, along with “respecting each other’s need for personal space” and “compatibility”.

You look up “how to make a relationship last” on Google. If you’re in a happy relationship yourself, you’ll mentally nod at each of the points that you read, telling yourself that both you and your partner are mature enough, and have already been unknowingly following all of the rules. Good job! But, if you’re someone who’s had a couple of relationships with not very beautiful endings, you’ll agree with yourself on how you followed each of those rules, and your ex is someone who’ll never know how to make a relationship work. Or, you could agree that both you and your partner followed the rules, but destiny wronged you.

I’m guilty of such pursuits on the internet, just like you. Maybe, you’re in a relationship for the past five years. Or maybe, your longest relationship didn’t last more than six months. You might be the same person in a relationship as someone who has spent eight long years in one and is still going strong. You might have had very understanding and equally mature partners. Yet, your relationships might’ve failed. It’s funny how, sometimes, following all the rules to make it to the summit of a cliff, doesn’t take you anywhere even close to the flat top of a neighboring plateau. “It’s complicated”, we call it. Maybe, it is.

It all starts with “feeling” the love in your whole body. Like the latest song on your playlist, you love how you cannot get enough of it. You dodge all your other friends, one by one, in continuous order, like you skip all the other songs on your list. This one song makes you feel ecstatic. It probably is the only song that you think you can never get sick of. You look up its lyrics on the internet, just like you delve deep into the person’s facebook timeline, to know every word, every detail of their being. You fish for remixes and feel lucky to realize that nothing beats the beauty of the original. You love the person for what he is, and the faults, if any, only make him that perfect for you.

New songs come and go, but your loyalty towards “the one” stays unperturbed. It’s no longer the only song you listen to, and the older tracks begin to frequent your music sessions again. But, it’s not a bad sign. It’s just a sign of balance; balance between friends, family and your partner. However, you can’t deny that you still listen to your favorite song five times a day. It’s the song that you like to begin your playlist with.

And someday, you decide not to begin your day with that song. Maybe give another song a chance; not necessarily new. You skip the song for a few days till you realize that it no longer serves a purpose on your music player. You’ve heard it so many times that after having kept it on the list, unheard, for quite a long time, you finally are detached enough to let it go. Now, don’t you think that lucky are the songs which never made it to being your “favorite one”? Because even though they never made it to the top of the music priority chart, they’re still there.

It’s crazy how the reason for that song becoming your favorite was a beautiful “feeling” that it gave you. And the reason for it no longer being on the list is that it doesn’t create a “feeling” in you anymore.

Maybe, it isn’t following the list of rules that is going to make your relationships work. Maybe, it’s only a matter of being conscious of the fact that not letting yourself be subordinate to your emotions will. Maybe, the image from the Gita of a chariot drawn by horses symbolizing the senses has some relevance. Maybe, love isn’t as much about the feeling that our grandparents or parents live with, each day of their lives. Maybe, it is more about fulfilling the duty of companionship that they’ve conquered through the years. Maybe, it’s about all the smiles, the frowns, the angry words, the distance and the closeness that come together in a package. Maybe, it’s not just a favorite song, but the whole playlist in itself.