We all have our ways of coping. The Cardinal & Cream staff actually just wrote an article about some of the places where they feel at peace with the chaos that comes with college.
Some people work out. Some people listen to their music. Some people take walks. Some people write or journal. Some people go for a drive or take a trip to Kroger. I am one of the people that either needs to do something active or write.
I didn’t discover that writing was one of the best ways I cope with the world around me until last semester. Life got hectic, and I found myself in a tangle of anxiousness and scattered thoughts to the point that I just didn’t know how to process anything.
I found that writing about some of these feelings and experiences helped me to grasp and process them in a more tangible way. Most of the time, my journals stay between me, my laptop and God.
Musicians do this too. Their process is just different than mine. Their writings get put to chords, and just like that, their art tells a story too – it’s just heard rather than read off a page of a book or a website link.
Just this week, I saw this process on display through Selena Gomez’s new single “Lose You to Love Me.” As soon as I saw the promos for this song and video, I knew it would be to some degree about her relationship with Justin Bieber. Their relationship was off and on for years, but they broke up for the final time in late 2017. Bieber has been with his now wife, Hailey Baldwin, since 2018.
The first sound to echo out my speakers is a strong piano lead, and from there, I know that I am about to be invited into a place of Gomez’s heart that was once shattered but was mended throughout the songwriting process. As this song plays through, she begins to detail all the things she should have seen earlier and all the red flags she ignored about her relationship.
The words “I needed to lose you to find me / this dancing was killing me softly” echoed through the speakers from my phone as I took in this beautifully vulnerable piece of music. Gomez so eloquently expresses the way she allowed a relationship to define her and the personal growth she has had since the relationship ended.
Some would say that she is bringing up things that are in the past now, especially with her ex being married to someone else, but I think it says something totally different.
This song being released now shows that Gomez allowed herself the time she needed to find the parts of herself she lost in her relationship and that she is closing that chapter of her life. This song tells the all-too-familiar story of someone that got lost in a relationship that ended up breaking parts of themselves they didn’t even know were breaking.
We all cope in different ways. This song, its writing process, music video shoot and instrumental music all seem to have been how Gomez coped with a broken heart and mended her shattered self-confidence.
In my opinion, Gomez waited to put out this song because she was still walking through her journey of healing. This journey is different for everyone, and Gomez’s journey led her here.