"Falling Apart" Requires Having Been Whole

Great songs are the ones that echo through our lives, so connected to our thoughts and emotions that we never hear the pulses fading as the particles begin to slow. Those songs become a part of us, forming pathways between the head and heart that define the ways we think, the ways we feel, the very ways we are. Great songs are rare, because few things can weave themselves into the fabric of our souls without the colors beginning to clash. These song stitch us up when we are bleeding, they hold us together when we have come undone.

I felt that connection with Dilana's song "Falling Apart" the very first time I heard it through the artifacts and distortion of low resolution video. Like most things in my life, I knew there was something special slapping me to grab my attention, but it would take time before I could understand what it was, or explain it to myself. My life is a history of seeing things only in the rear-view mirror, as the inverted images make more sense to the tangled wires in my head than reality does as it unfolds.

In the first verse, Dilana sings, "one day I'll repair broken thoughts in my head/I pinch my skin, there's no feeling". Around the time this song came to be, I was convinced I had no feelings of my own. This was not stoicism in holding down what was stirring under the surface, but a perceived lack of the emotions I knew were supposed to be present. That was made evident during an episode in college when someone noted my lack of reaction to our 'near death experience' that was nothing of the sort. I realized then that I was quite different than everyone else, although I did not know the extent or reason just yet.

My thinking was broken, and remains broken, but with new and unique cracks keeping the pieces from holding together. Being an unintentional contrarian is not easy, as people begin to turn away when you can't experience life the same way they do. Most don't have the time or patience to try to understand the alternative, which creates a distance difficult to overcome, if those people don't outright deny my experiences are real at all. Being told my memories and feelings don't exist has been a mind-fuck I have struggled with, because I already struggled to believe myself.

Dilana is the person who has lit the torch with which the depths of my soul have been explored. Without her, I might still be that person going through each day letting life bounce and slough off me. Perhaps that would be better than the way things often are, but it would be less authentic, and less of the truth. Dilana has performed miracles in helping me to understand the person who hides behind the snark and flattery I protect myself with. Through these songs, yes, but also as a dear friend.

She goes on to sing, "chasing after what's never been real/tell me why do I feel un-together". Our stories are as divergent as possible, but we both feel that same sense of longing to believe happiness is more than bait tempting us from inside a trap. Love and dreams are prayers we have, but they are answered by people and not God, and only by those few who can see and hear the same frequencies of life we do. What is real are the people who know your heart and soul without needing every detail of the story, the ones who ask nothing but to be a source of support. Feeling together comes from being with those people who see the broken shards not as shrapnel, but as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that creates a beautiful visage.

The second verse brings the lines, "I'd burn the sky so you could find your way/you'd leave me here in the dark, pleading". Her imagery is evocative, and if that flame is St Elmo's fire guiding our way to each other, it is very much akin to a line I wrote once about the sun being the reason to chase the horizon. Dilana is that light for me.

Being able to sing with your soul is a special quality few vocalists possess. Dilana is one of them, her voice bleeding truth with every note. The weariness and pain of life are evident in her hushed tones, and her defiance to let that define her powers her earth-shattering belted notes. Her stature compacts her soul in a fusion reaction so it can explode from her in a burst of cosmic magic. If Dilana is a star, her voice is the stardust that shines in both the light of the sun and moon. Those different colors show the yin and yang, the light and dark, how there is as much beauty in wiping a tear off your love's face as there is in making them smile. I've had the fortune of achieving one of those.

Then we reach the song's chorus:

"I'm not falling in love/I'm falling apart
Am I getting confused/Because I'm losing my heart
I'm so bloody fucked up/I don't know where to start
Sick of hurting/I tried so hard..."

The crux is contained in these words. Many of us are fucked up, because fate and fortune do not bless us with every gift. Some people are given love without effort, others the inability to tell the difference between love and proximity. Both can be better than wanting love and knowing it hasn't come along, knowing how rare a discovery it is. We try our best to be authentic people, and to love ourselves for who we are, but there comes a point when we need someone else to see us the same way we hope to see ourselves. That isn't selfish, it's a search for confirmation we aren't delusional about who we are and what we are capable of. To be loved is not just a feeling of affection, it's a feeling of acceptance as the people we are. That can mean more to us than any other form of success.

But sometimes we reach a point where we feel so broken down and bruised that we can't see how someone else will ever love us as we currently exist. The light in our eyes is dimmed and shielded by the dark circles, so all that remains is, as I wrote in a song, "the echo of the sun". When that point comes, trying again feels as if we are condemning ourselves to be Sisyphus pushing our heart up the mountain, only to watch it collect dirt as we have to gather it up again.

The answer is sometimes as simple as having one person who sees this not as a flaw, or a problem to solve, but as a fluke of the universe. When you have someone who accepts the totality of you, and loves you for it rather than in spite of it, you don't have to try. That doesn't always happen, but when it does, the questions don't seem to matter anymore.

That is who Dilana has been, and what this song has meant to me. For these years, "Falling Apart" has been a song that has let me feel seen and accepted. That would be enough, but the fact Dilana has become a person who has done the same is the best evidence I have seen that love does in fact exist. I have doubted it, and I still doubt it, but that is what "Falling Apart" lets me think I have felt.

What song could have done more?