Driver's License Forced Me to Finally Seek Out Therapy

 

        Right now I am going through a period in my life where I wish I was heartbroken. Do you ever just feel an emptiness inside of you, and want it to be filled with something, anything, even if it was something absolutely devastating and lethal? Maybe it's just the current state of the world? Maybe it's because recently I went through a breakup and it made me sad, but didn't tear me apart, and I felt like something was wrong with me because of it? Maybe it’s because Olivia Rodrigo has finally released a full version of Drivers License and I've been blasting that shit 24/7? Maybe it's all three? I'm not sure. All I do know is that I ache for absolute sorrow and it wasn't until I heard Driver's License that I was finally able to identify this yearning.

     During my first listen through of Miss Rodrigo's song I found myself, for lack of a better word, triggered. I hate to use that language in such a low stakes context, but I don't know how else to describe the supersonic speed at which my brain immediately forgot everything that happened after 2016 and made me a teen again. Somehow I was no longer in my New York apartment, but driving through my floridian suburb (/swamp) and crying my heart out over boys that didn't matter. Somehow, without knowing me, she had concocted the perfect auditory potion to transport me back to one of the moments in my short life where I was in p a i n. And, this is going to sound masochistic, I know, but I missed it. I missed the feeling of being ripped apart by an emotion so potent and undeniable. I missed feeling as if i was possessed because what was going on inside of me was completely out of my control. 

   Perhaps that's really what this comes down to. I feel completely out of control of my life at the moment. (hello invisible airborne virus & the rise of fascism/the ocean across the globe). But the uncertainty isn't making me melancholy like I know it could. I'm just numb. And within that numbness I find myself craving devastation and agony. Perhaps the scale of the world's problems is just too large to make me feel like I'm being torn limb from limb. Maybe I need a specific external force to open my chest & rip my heart out so that I can feel the way the 4 minutes & 2 seconds that is Drivers License sounds. The ghost of this calamitous feeling is simply not enough.

    Obviously the title of this blog post is a joke. I was seeking out a therapist previous to the release of Rodrigo's debut single, but I would be lying if I said it didn't solidify that I needed to talk to someone. If the only way for me to feel something is for a 17 year old girl to get her heart shattered and write a hit single about it, maybe it's time to download better help.

xoxo,

Sarah L