‘I Needed to Lose You to Love Me’ — My Shero, Selena Gomez
Her songs show us the reality we choose to ignore when madly in love.
You promised the world and I fell for it
I put you first and you adored it
— Selena Gomez, Song: Lose You to Love Me
There must be a reason why February is the shortest month of the year because as soon as people fall in love, reality sets in and all hell breaks loose after a while. That’s when we look for this ‘month of love’ to end.
When we love someone, we invest not only our time but give every piece of ourselves. We surround our world with our partner’s thoughts, dreams, and emotions. We are rooting for their goals so much, and in the process, we forget about the plans we are chasing as now nothing matters apart from the happiness of the person we love.
The song ‘Lose You to Love Me’ by Selena Gomez hits every single ache in your heart. The words transport you to the time when you took your partner’s every word as the gospel truth until the rose-tinted glass breaks, and reality slowly seeps in.
I saw the signs and I ignored it
Rose-colored glasses all distorted
— Selena Gomez, Song: Lose You to Love Me
Yes, as she rightly said, there are signs, but we are too blind in love to see them. The euphoria of love distorts your vision so much that when you stand in front of the mirror, the identity you worked so hard to build flies outside the window.
Every heartache is a lesson. A lesson that eventually teaches you that you need to love yourself first. When you meet someone, you bring your self-fulfilled identity to the table. That confidence that you build by aspiring to your dreams, your hobbies, your love for life is what the other person likes about you in the first place.
But the moment cupid strikes his arrow, we fall into an illusion. We forget that our world consists of us first, then the other person who is only a part of our life and not our whole life.
We’d always go into it blindly
I needed to lose you to find me
— Selena Gomez, Song: Lose You to Love Me
But then, the universe does you a favour, and the person leaves. That is where the real fun begins. You are in pain, and the pain numbs you. You pretend that everything is okay. You get on with the day as you must because you need to put food on the table.
Days turn into weeks. You feel as though you should feel better now and some days you do. But every night when there is a moment of stillness when your head hits the pillow, that is when the tears you were holding onto decide to come out and drop from your eyes to the pillow.
A year has 365 days (not getting into the leap year calculation), so you still have ten more months to heal when February ends. The sun shines, spring arrives, and now when you stand in front of the mirror, all you see is YOU.
Now that you see what you have sacrificed for the sake of love, it hits you hard when you look back at your memories. Think about it. In the process of rooting for the other person, there must have been times when you made the mistake of communicating your deepest desires. You send something for feedback, but it doesn’t arrive. Although if the situation were reversed, you would drop everything and cater to your ex’s needs.
And now the chapter is closed and done
And now it’s goodbye, it’s goodbye for us
— Selena Gomez, Song: Lose You to Love Me
Now the chapter ends. You heal, although there is no timeline to healing, so you take it one day at a time. You begin to find yourself, love doing things that make you feel complete. You realise that the potential of growth, when you put your mind to it, is so vast, that if you were in the relationship, you would have never achieved that milestone that you have today.
Yes, family and friends support you, and when you have a partner that roots for you, the struggle seems more bearable. But what we forget is that our mind is our biggest motivator. No matter how much someone else believes in you, it won’t work until you believe in yourself.
As Selena Gomez has penned down her pain and evolved so beautifully after going through the grieving process, ‘look at her now’ (The song is great too. Check it out). She rose from the darkest tunnels of pain and found her true self.
Her songs, like her, are full of depth and reality. They force you to see the real picture. She is my shero, and I am sure for millions of others too. But just being her fan is not enough. We must listen, learn, and grow from her songs.
And one of the biggest lessons she taught me is, to love myself — first.
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