If this were the 90s, I’d have made them a mixtape.

Everybody has some heartache, even if they are having the best day of their lives.

It’s human to feel that gap, even on the sunniest mornings or twinkly evenings.

I have it – in the blindingly happiest and glorious moments of dancing, bright lights and words plummeting forth, I miss my parents. But this isn’t about my hidden heartache. This is about someone else entirely.

Today, that heartache is being felt by someone. Their nondescript, wordless heartache is sitting there, being that gap. I call it nondescript because they’re floating, unpinned down and blatantly obvious to me but probably not anyone else. To anyone else, they’ll see that smiley-facey person they work with or see at the deli.

It works the same way with me. You may see me smiling and waving and dancing and all that stuff, but this person knows and sees my awkward elbows and crying in the corners. They know the heartache of years and they know the journeys like they were their own. They understand the nuances of  a song’s one line and get why I couldn’t eat certain foods for a long time. They laugh in the face of my “I’m fine” and slam the door shut on my social pretenses.

Today, these heartaches are my deskfellows. I’m, strangely but relatively sanely, a fan of feeling an emotion all the way through. I wallow, I work through and I eventually release. It’s what I do. It’s what this person does too, in a way. There’s healing in catharsis (yes, I know, old joke…)

I can do nothing to help them except listen, understand and let them know that I’m here.

If this were the 90s, I’d have made them a mixtape.

So I made them a playlist.

(please note – any and all wallowing is allowed at this point. Hence, cheesy music is not only condoned but insisted upon). 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwQP3tL6ba4]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl-kpRAZbHo]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0UZWywmavk]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3VfooOkoRg]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13WAhlE02ew]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EM4TGMMckI]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCnf46boC3I]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnWKxaDKBHI]

And, finally…because this version arrived like a surprise one night, when I was in the depths of my worst heartache ever…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eVMhDW-HPc]

I love you. I’m here. All the way through. Remember that.