It might be easy for some to dismiss Tove Lo's "Habits" as a breakup song with gratuitous sexual content and substance abuse, but I find it hauntingly sad in its raw emptiness and sorrow.
When you're struck by grief, there are many escapist avenues you can take. Some brave souls manage to avoid escapism and deal with the sorrow head on, letting the emotions run through and take over until the pain begins to ease. But many of us lack the mettle to just feel and opt instead for distractions - any distraction to "numb the pain," as Tove Lo says.
Some people take the constructive path, where you dive in your work and use your career and professional development as a distraction from the pain and loneliness. But others crave the intimacy and connection so much, that we grasp at straws to find a connection, tenuous as it may be.
We miss the touch.
It's the touch that validates our humanity; it makes us active and alive in someone's space.
In that regard, Tove Lo's "Habits" is very similar to Sam Smith's "Stay with Me," where even an empty connection is better than none at all.
So when I listen to "Habits" and "Stay with Me," something deep within me stirs. I feel like a pair of hands in tearing my stomach apart from the inside. My chest hurts, and I feel as though my heart and lungs are going to sink into that cavity.
I think about how much Fiance and I touch on a daily basis. It's well understood that we engage in more PDA than most - perhaps as a result of our cultural backgrounds, which are filled with displays of affection. We love being connected. When we sleep, even in nights of 100 degree heat, we connect somehow, whether it's my right foot on top of his left, or holding hands from opposite ends of the bed. I think about how much we touch, and the thought of being deprived of that touch stirs a primal instinct that makes me combative, eyes watering in rage and ready to gnaw and claw anyone who tries to take that away from me.
When I was in my early twenties, the man I loved broke my heart. My initial reaction was anger, as the breakup was sudden and came without any warning, without any possibility to discuss the issues and work on them. I was on summer break from college, and in my anger, I went home and signed up for an LSAT prep course, taking charge of my future. You'd think that with that reaction, I had chosen the constructive escapist path, but the course wouldn't start for another month or so.
In full disclosure, I could've chosen an earlier prep course. It meant I would have to take a flight to LA the very next day and start the course a couple sessions in, but even in my anger my denial was stronger: I held onto the possibility that he'd call me, apologize for making a huge mistake, and that we'd get back together and work on our yet unsurfaced issues.
After my initial surge of adrenaline came the depression.
Since I was on summer break with no job or responsibilities to tend to, I had plenty of time to stay in bed with nothing compelling me to get up. I barely ate, and I alternated between crying and sleeping. There were times where I'd just lay in bed for hours, having slept so much that I'd be entirely awake, and having cried so much that my tear ducts had dried. During those times, I'd try to motivate myself, telling myself that I'd find someone else. But then I'd think about how deliriously happy I had been just a few days before, baffled that my happiness could be taken away so suddenly, and feeling devastated at the thought that I would never be that happy again.
Then a friend invited me to a party, and I made myself go to it. I knew I needed to escape that engulfing, debilitating, soul-sucking sadness. But at the party, I just wasn't into it. I knew no one other than the birthday girl, and while this typically doesn't stop me from making new friends and having a blast, I just didn't want to be there. I wanted to return to the safety and comfort of my bed, where I didn't have to be present and alive for anyone else.
So I escaped into my phone instead, texting my brother to see if we were going to meet up later that night for a movie (he stood me up).
That's when Tony brought me back to reality. I hadn't even realized someone had taken a seat next to me in the saddest, darkest corner of the living room, where this house party was taking place.
"You must be bored," he said.
"What?" I replied as he yanked me away from my solitude.
"You're looking at your phone. You must be really bored in this party if you've got nothing better to do than stare at your phone." (Later I realized what a great "line" this was and proceeded to use it on other men at bars.)
"No," I stammered, "It's just that- I- I'm waiting to hear back from my brother. I'm supposed to meet up with him tonight." I felt embarrassed that he had called me on my phone escape, and I felt I needed to justify my behavior to this stranger. I fumbled to find an earlier text from brother as "proof" that I had a reason for staring at the device.
But while I fumbled, Tony stole a kiss from me.
I had heard the expression "stealing a kiss" before, but I had always thought of it as a poetic way to say someone kissed you. In this particular instance it rang true. As I fumbled, Tony lifted up my chin slightly as he said, "Stop looking at your phone," and kissed me.
In that moment, when our lips touched, it took me a second to realize what was happening, and my first instinct was to push him away. My lips were reserved for Hector … except they were not anymore. Hector's lips were never going to kiss mine again, and because of this stolen kiss, Hector was no longer the last person I had kissed.
He was gone. Really and truly gone.
So I kissed Tony back. I barely remember what he looked like. I remember an attractive face, with a confident smirk, light eyes (maybe grey?), and a slight belly. I remember his hands were just as assertive as his lips, taking no time to travel around my body like frantic explorers who want to chart every new landmark they come across. I remember not particularly liking the way he kissed, or how presumptuously he groped. I remember him taking my hand and guiding me to the back yard, which was mostly dark and empty, as confused looks started to follow us. I remember closing the glass sliding door behind him, leaning his back against the wall next to it, and pulling me towards him by the belt loops on my loose jeans. As his hands easily slipped into my jeans and grabbed my butt, I realized just how much weight I had lost since the breakup, resulting in pants that were literally easy to get into.
I don't remember feeling like an active participant in all of this. I remember feeling numb about the whole thing, experiencing it as though outside of my own body, hovering above the scene and looking in at someone who looked like me. I remember thinking that if I was never going to kiss Hector again, then fuck it - Tony was good enough. I remember resenting the onlookers with the kind of disgust in their eyes that masks their morbid, voyeuristic fascination. And I remember resenting them not because of the slut-shaming judgement in their eyes, but because it took this scene to make them even notice I was there. And I felt grateful to Tony: that he saw me, and that he brought me back to life, to reality, to the present moment.
So I get Tove Lo.
I get the lightness of living in a haze, lifting you up as it suppresses feeling and replaces it with numbness. I get the need for sexual gratification, masking the longing for real intimacy. I get the loneliness. I get the hollow sadness.
