Hello, sob

I am writing this while curled up in the fetal position in a dark room. I have just listened to the new Adele single “Hello” and … and …

SOB!

… Sorry. Let me collect myself … there. I just have to keep starting the song over because it’s just all so heartbreakingly sad and I can’t hear the lyrics over my own weeping. It’s the saddest thing that ever happened. Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a little. Let’s say it’s the saddest thing since “Someone Like You” but since “Someone Like You” was the saddest thing in the history of the world, that makes “Hello” the second saddest.

I need therapy after the first verse. If you combined my tears from every time a family member died, I have never even cried this much. The sadness of this ballad will comfort me through the sadness of winter. I will spend many nights curled up on the couch in the dark, wrapped in a tasteful throw blanket because I’m too sad to turn on the heat, just playing this song on a loop and crying into my hot chocolate. 

Oh god, she’s getting to the chorus again … excuse me …

… Sniff sniff. OK. Better now. Maybe I should pause it, though, for my own sanity. Anyway, Adele sounds like a million birds with broken wings, all crying out in sadness. She is the Space Needle of sad ballads. She is like a quadruple bypass that failed because there was just too much heartbreak. Adele’s voice is the sound of a choir of angels who just found out that God dumped them.

I actually started crying before I even heard the song. The second I read the headline that Adele would be releasing “Hello,” I just started bawling. I don’t know why because I haven’t gone through any breakups in years. You just cry at Adele; it’s just something humans do. You see all these articles like “Why We All Cry Uncontrollably When We Hear Adele” but that can’t explain it. One might as well try to map the human soul.

I wept at the first few notes. And then the video? Forget it. I was a puddle. The flip phone … SOB … oh God the flip phone. So heartbreaking. Who can’t relate? And Adele’s eyeliner in that sepia tone? All the feelings. All of them. I cried so hard when I saw that video, I had to lie down for a few hours. Even the font choice for the single title … meltdown. Total meltdown. Just thinking about it now … whimper.

The best part of this new album is that we get to have our hearts broken all over again. I didn’t think Adele hit the themes of heartbreak hard enough on her last album so I look forward to experiencing much, much more of the same, slapped on with the same trowel.

I am ready to wallow again.