Breaking Bad Habits - Snippets from an Old Journal.

Don't get me wrong, but I used to find it cliche when people back home write about songs with paragraphs on their life and experiences. Well, guess what?? Cliche paid me an essential visit recently! I was going through an old journal from college when I came across this song lyric. 

As I traced a finger across the tear stained letters, I remembered exactly how painful those days were. I read the lyrics and I smiled. I didn't even know the title of the song then. I heard the song from a friend's mp3 jumble and I took the pains to write out the lyrics in my journal.  With my mind still hazy from the bittersweet memories, I googled the lyrics. And this is what I found.

Breaking Bad Habits - Amy Kuney

I'm starting over

All by myself

I've gotten sober

And I'm getting help

Now I didn't plan this

Oh I want you to know

I'm just breaking bad habits

You're the first one to go

My new year's resolution

Didn't last long

I tried to quit you

I suffered withdrawals

Now I didn't plan this

Oh I want you to know

I'm just breaking bad habits

You're the first one to go

Never thought I would get so damn dependent

To ask your permission to breathe

Coffee and cigarettes cannot replace you

Cause I've got you like a disease

When will I ever be free?

You and I

Were long overdue

No more spending my life

Depending on you

Now I didn't plan this

Oh I want you to know

I'm just breaking bad habits

You're the first one to go

Now I didnt plan this

Oh I want you to know

I'm just breaking bad habits

You're the first one to go

As I listened to the song on Youtube, I realized I still get teary eyed from it. The power of a song!!

Falling in love and nursing my bruises caused by the fall was one  major topic in every other entry in my old journal. Now I read the lines and I smile, remembering how painful it was. When you're eighteen and you fall for a guy, a perfect gentleman, you put him on a pedestal and think that there is no one else in the world that could be as perfect as him! 

Gosh, I wish I could look at a guy, any guy, with such admiration again !! 

Alas!!  I’m ‘wisened’ over the years!

It was falling in love that made me feel the first pang of inferiority complex!

“I always knew I was never good enough for him! For the first time in my life, looking like my Ma isn’t enough. I wish I could look better! Why didn't i inherit my grandma's fair skin and my Dad's charm?? Why do I have to be the ugly one when I'm the only sister? I'm tired of chanting 'Life's unfair'... but yes, tonight, I'll chant just once more time. LIFE'S UNFAIR!!”

I laughed out as I read this! Now, I wouldn’t trade my looks for the world and absolutely not for the attention of a man. Looking like my Ma, having her eyes and her smile is much more important to me than looking “better”. And I hope my children and my children’s children have my eyes and my smile! My niece has my chin… and I love her to bits! And I definitely don’t want her to look ‘better’!! 

Well, opinions do change over the years!

The heartbreak at the end of the fall….

“I shook the whole day today. The pain is magnificent. There are no tears left. There’s none left for me and my self-pity”

The reconciliation, which came after years…

“I’ve finally realized that this chapter of my life is closed. And now, I have a new chapter to write, the pages blank and inviting. For the first time since long, I’m glad that I wrote and finished the chapter which somehow helped me grow. I’m sure I’ll always come back here for reference. It was painful yes, but it was way too beautiful to be a mistake. No, it was not a mistake!”

I know how much it hurts back then, but later when you look back at it, who could resist such a good  heartbreak? I'm also aware that I can look back and be mesmerized by it only because I've gotten over the heartbreak!!

Which reminds me of Rachel Berry's line from Glee 

"That was amazing, I'm speechless. I just had a relationship with a guy who turned out to be gay. That is songwriting gold!"

Well, I'm not a songwriter. Yet. But a good heartbreak always makes a good, memorable and captivating topic to write, talk or recall !!

Wotsay you??? Hit any 'songwriting gold' yet?? I guessed I already did when I went through my old journal.

Thank God for Heartbreaks!

Finally! :)