Everyone remembers the first time they had their heartbreak. It’s so blinding and all-encompassing, like nothing else in the world matters. The heart shatters, people don’t feel worthy of love, that everything is their fault or they lash out against others. It can be an ugly experience, at worst, making a person feel like they can never love again. This is a foundational memory for Common, something he argues is one of his greatest lessons today.
Recently, he appeared on an episode of On Purpose With Jay Shetty. There, he opens up about the first time he experienced heartbreak as an adult. For the Chicago rapper, it left him profoundly broken, different from losing someone in his life. Because of how he processed it for the first time, it became a little harmful, making the split all the more devastating.
Common Recalls What He Learned From the First Time He Had His Heart Broken
“One of my greatest lessons and times that I’ve grown as a human being has been in one of the greatest pains I had. And that was a breakup, a heartbreak where I was like broken. And I hadn’t been broken like that. I had lost people in my life,” Common explains. “And that was definitely devastating, but it was something about a heartbreak where the person was obviously you hear they’re still alive. This was the first love that I had as an adult. And I knew God had ordained it. But at a certain point, it became not healthy.”
Additionally, Common notes that he wasn’t the one who initiated the breakup. Instead, after lots of partying, he took it on the chin and it wrecked him. Afterwards, he read a number of self help books in order to try and recover a sense of himself.
“I got broke up with, you know, and it was like, ‘Whew, this is hard,’” he says. “And at times, I wasn’t wasn’t eating consistently. I was sitting in this hotel room for weeks just trying to find a piece, calling my aunt, talking to different people about it. It was weighing on me.”
“One of the lessons was that I was willing to dim my light for others,” Common adds. “And in that relationship, I was dimming my light. It wasn’t it’s not that person’s fault. I take responsibility for that.”
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