Never Meant

by editor Michele Catalano

It’s the Facebook memories that are doing me in this morning. There we are, celebrating my birthday. He bought me a new turntable and a couple of albums and I’m holding up American Football’s LP1 and smiling for all the world like I’m the luckiest person alive. And I am. At that particular point.

Four in the morning is a good time to think about the past, to ruminate and obsess and regret. It’s also a good time to put on LP1 and let those emotions run through you like a freight train. Reminiscing construed as hobby. It’s what I do. 

I remember putting the record when he gave it to me and once again being swept up by just how powerful the lyrics are, how profound. They are heat-seeking missiles aimed at my heart. I’m smiling in the picture. It’s probably the last time we were really happy together, that smile one of last vestiges of a relationship that was stretched too thin to last. Those lyrics couldn’t hurt me then; I was too confident in the love I had to have my heart punctured by emotions that belonged to someone else. But oh, how it hurts now.

Not to be overly (overly)

Dramatic

I just think it’s best

‘Cause you can’t miss what you forget

So, let’s just pretend

Everything and anything

Between you and me

Was never meant

This album slays me now. It cuts me deep and wide as I lie on my couch, bleeding out sorrow, at this ungodly hour. That makes me hold it closer, as if it’s some sort of talisman that could take me back to that August day in 2020 when I thought our love was untouchable. 

It’s fascinating how an album changes as you do. What was once a musical treasure that spoke to me in past tense became a diary of sorts–songs that spilled out the pages of my heart, the lyrics reading like a tell-all of my marriage. 

I’m thinking about

Leaving

How I should say goodbye

With a handshake

Or an embrace

Or a kiss on the cheek

Possibly, all three

Sometimes, in the dark of night when I couldn’t sleep, I would imagine the end. The end of us, the end of happiness, the end of contentment. I never really thought he was mine forever; he just isn’t that kind of guy. But I guess I thought I could give him reasons to stay. Still, I conjured up all kinds of scenarios of how he would leave me eventually, and of the three things Mike Kinsella sings about, I got none. I listen to this song now and my love for it is accompanied by a subtle pain, something I’ve grown used to.

Not dead

Yet

But the regrets (Are killing me)

He hated American Football and all emo music, so it was a surprise that he bought the album for me. I knew enough to play it when he was out of the house, and as he was out of the house often for AA meetings, I had plenty of time to spend with the record. It became familiar, a comfort. Look at this devastating love, I’d say. How terrible for them. Glad that’s not me.

LP1 is the ultimate breakup/divorce album. It’s goodbyes. It’s endings. It’s me standing at the front door watching him go. It’s about regret (so much regret), about stagnation and heartache. It’s not a record you put on because you’re in a good mood. It’s not even a crying record. It’s a quiet resignation, an acknowledgment that things are never what they seem, that endings are inevitable. 

It connects me to him still, and if I really wanted to sever ties with my heartbreak, I would never listen to LP1 again. But, like so many things that form my heart, I can’t let go.

Considering

Everything

Me leaving

With regrets

Only makes sense

I’ll see you when we’re both not so emotional

LP1 is devastating. When I listen to “Never Meant” now, I think about how smug I was when I first heard it, how shallow my listening was because I couldn’t—wouldn’t—put myself in that situation. It was heartache by proxy, me putting myself in the singer’s place. My empathy would kick in and I’d feel sad for him, but never for me, because I was safe. I was protected. By whom I thought I was protected, I don’t know. 

There are no preventive measures you can take for having your heart broken, except to obsess over it even when you’re happy. I do not recommend this course of action, one that is replete with intrusive thoughts. Heartbreak usually comes as a surprise. You’re never prepared for it. But if you are a fan of emo music, you are armed and equipped for what comes after. I still have this vision of myself on the day he left: breakup records spread out on the living room floor, me flipping sides and crying, trying to find some catharsis. I didn’t get to LP1 until later that first lonely night. I put the record my now ex-husband bought me  —  on the turntable he bought me — and fought back tears. As soon as the first notes hit, I knew. This album was now mine. I was one with it. All the songs I passed off as belonging to someone else now belonged to me. I held the album cover close to my chest and sobbed. I found my catharsis. I found the words I was trying to come up with. It was going to hurt like hell, but it would also be okay.

So, let’s just pretend

Everything and anything

Between you and me

Was never meant

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