"Damages" by Tems Is Not a Sad Song. It's an Eviction Notice. And I Have Been Serving Them.

Let me correct the record.

For months I thought this song was about heartbreak. I played it softly. I stared at ceilings. I used it as background music for my feelings like it was a sad film score. I was wrong. I was so completely, embarrassingly wrong.

I recently sat down with the actual lyrics and Tems looked me in the eye through the speakers and said 

Not I have damages. Not you left me with damages. She said no more. Past tense. Filed, closed, shredded, thrown out with the recycling. She is not the victim in this song. She is the HR department issuing a final termination letter with her edges laid and absolutely zero regrets.

And suddenly I understood. Because I too have been in this exact position. Multiple times. With multiple people. And each time I stayed far too long before finally doing what Tems did putting on something nice, walking out, and not looking back.

This is that story.

There is a specific type of person who only shows up when they sense you are doing well. You get a new job they text. You post a good photo they're suddenly "thinking about you." You mind your business successfully for three consecutive weeks and somehow that is the exact moment they remember you exist.

I know this person. I have fed this person. I have, on at least two separate occasions, explained to this person why what they did was wrong, in full sentences, with examples, like I was presenting a case to a committee. I prepared. I had notes. I was thorough.

They apologised. They did it again. I made more notes.

Tems did not make notes. Tems simply left. She is the smarter one.

Translation: while you were busy being inconsistent, I was building. Quietly. Without announcing it. Without a LinkedIn post about my journey or an Instagram story about growth. Just moving. Becoming. Arriving somewhere better without sending a single update to anyone who didn't deserve one.

This is the part of the song I play loudest. Because there is something deeply satisfying about realising that the period you thought was your lowest the period where someone made you feel small, confused, or simply not enough was actually just you, charging in the dark.

You weren't lost. You were loading.

I want to frame this lyric and hang it above my door.

Because drama is exhausting in a very specific way. Not the dramatic big moments those are almost manageable. It's the small drama. The passive drama. The "I didn't say anything was wrong" drama, delivered with a tone that suggests several things are wrong. The drama of someone who needs you to ask the right questions in the right order before they will tell you what you did, which was probably nothing, but also possibly everything, and you will not know until you guess correctly.

I am not a game show host. I cannot guess. I do not have the emotional bandwidth or the prize money.

Tems said save it. I cosign this completely.

This line. This line.

Because there comes a moment and if you have lived any kind of life you have met this moment where someone calls you and you look at the phone and feel absolutely nothing. Not anger. Not longing. Not even mild curiosity. Just a quiet, clean, almost administrative sense of no.

You don't even decline it dramatically. You just put the phone face down and return to your life.

That is not coldness. That is completion. That is a person who has processed, concluded, and moved on so thoroughly that even the ringtone no longer has power. Tems achieved this. I have achieved this. It took longer than I would like to admit but we got there.

The most underrated form of self respect is admitting that some people were simply not built for you. Not bad people necessarily. Just incompatible. Wrong timing, wrong frequency, wrong energy in ways that no amount of communication or patience or good intentions could fix.

And yet we stay. We adjust ourselves. We make ourselves smaller, quieter, more convenient. We sand down our edges so the fit is smoother. We do this for months. Some of us and I will not say who do this for years.

Until one day you hear Tems say I'm done with it now and something in your chest just  agrees. Deeply. Physically. Like a decision your body made before your brain finished the sentence.

Done. No more. Closed. Next.

She's not hiding. She's not grieving. She came out. She looks good. She is risky her word, and she chose it intentionally. And the person who wasted her time is somewhere trying to offer whiskey like that's going to reverse a series of poor decisions.

It will not reverse anything. The whiskey is not the issue. The issue is that she grew while they stayed the same and now there is simply too much distance between who she became and who they insisted on remaining.

I have been this woman in a man's body at a bar in Addis, watching someone walk in who once made me question my value, and feeling absolutely nothing except mild appreciation for the music and a strong desire for more tibs. Growth is quiet. Growth is devastating to witness if you were the one who underestimated it.

Final Thoughts From Someone Who Is Also, Effective Immediately, Done

Tems didn't make a breakup song.

She made a closing statement. A polished, melodic, beautifully produced closing statement delivered by a woman who tried, waited, gave chances, got let down, and finally finally decided that her time and peace were worth more than the effort of explaining herself to someone who was never really listening.

No more damages. Not because the damages weren't real. But because she stopped accepting them as normal. She stopped building her life around someone else's inability to show up correctly.

And if you have been doing the same thing  adjusting, explaining, waiting, hoping maybe Tems is not just a song in your playlist.

Maybe she's a memo.

Read it. Act accordingly.

(The door is closed. It was locked from the inside. You did that. Goodbye.)