These Love Songs That Don't Love Me

“And I'm so sick of love songs
so tired of tears
so done with wishing you were still here.
Said I’m so sick of love songs
so sad and slow
…… So why can’t I turn off the radio?”
-Ne-Yo

How about these love songs? In “So Sick” Ne-Yo is suffering from the spoils of love. He is suffering hard too. “Don’t make me think about her smile or having her first child.” His heart is evidently still with his ex. I can’t speculate on the nature of their relationship, or what caused her to stop loving him, but I have come to the conclusion that that is not important. Regardless of if the love was perfect or misguided, Ne-Yo still feels the shitty spoils of love. It’s really fucked up when you think about it. She is gone. Moseying on with her happy life, moving forward on the next best to train, and he is stuck. Stuck in this cloudy, hellish nightmare. Can’t move backward because she’s gone. Can’t move forward because he can’t stop thinking about all of it over and over again. It sucks. The worst part is that he simply cannot afford to spend one more day stuck in the limbo warp zone because it is slowly eating away at his ability to be happy, his ability to focus, his peace of mind, and perhaps even his sanity. I’m sure Ne-Yo did not know it, but he may as well have been sitting on a time bomb. Every additional day in this state grinds a person down. Further and further down. Everyday closer and closer to the bottom of the pit.
So at this point people who have never been there start making suggestions. I bet this is what happened to Ne-Yo. One of his boys told him, “Dude turn off the fuckn radio, quit listening to these sad ass love songs and pick yourself up.” And Ne-Yo was like I am tired of being stuck. I want to stop thinking about her but I can’t. Even if I turned off the radio in my room, a constant song is playing in my head day and night. “Why can’t I stop turn off the radio?” So, why? Why can’t he turn off the radio?
Reader, at this point I can take this post so many different directions, but since this blog is about love and not about mental health awareness I chose this direction. Jasmine Sullivan asks the question best. Why do we love love when love seems to hate us? After experiencing heartbreak and unreturned devotion and commitment, most of the population does not totally cast interest in pursuing another love relationship aside for all eternity. If people did that after every heartbreak I think humans would be pretty much extinct by now. But that doesn’t happen. Perhaps it’s all biological and people’s instinct to reproduce compels us not to give up on love. Maybe it’s spiritual. After the fall of man and all women were cursed to various degrees, God said be fruitful and multiply. Being fruitful involves so much more than having sex and popping babies. Being fruitful involves bearing the fruits of love. So what can the ladies of FAB Dub conclude about love from this perspective on “So Sick”? Don’t give up on love because of heartbreak. Ne-Yo still has not given up. It’s just not natural to quit loving. Keep the love for love alive. Don’t let your previous experience with love minimize the horizon of possibilities in your future for a love that is deeper, stronger, and possibly knock your socks off. As my favorite author said in Their Eyes Were Watching God “Love is a moving thing and it’s different on every shore.” Like Ne-Yo, don’t turn off the radio. Instead, dedicate each love song that plays to the love of love.