Writing by Gemma Dunsmore
Photo by Georgia Smith
Endings are never easy or simple. Melbourne front woman Gemma Dunsmore took to pouring her heart into lyrics that capture the relatable, internal struggle of facing doubts in a long-term relationship. Making sense of despondency and defeat, band This Space Is Ours pull all the conflicting emotions together in their perfect pop-punk track, Apology, that disguises pain amongst an electrifying beat. Gemma shared with Ramona what she would say to someone going through a similar situation:
‘Apology’ was written at a time in my life where I was six years deep into a relationship that had started when I was a teenager. From your late teens into early adulthood you change a massive amount and neither of us were anywhere close to who we were when the relationship had started. Doubts about whether the relationship was something I really wanted had been creeping into my mind for a while and writing this song was the first step I took in admitting that fact.
When deciding to end a long term relationship, especially when it’s the only one you’ve really known, it can be a very long and hard process. As you can hear in the lyrics of ‘Apology’, I was only ready to admit something wasn’t right but I wasn’t ready to end it. At the time, I was convinced that maybe if I tried hard enough, I could teach myself how to fall back in love with this person again. It took another whole year after that before I called it quits.
Now, I am fully of the perspective that I was only dragging it out longer than it needed to be. Especially being in my early twenties, there was no need to be fighting as hard as I was. Of course, the months after ending it felt awful, I felt guilty and almost as if I was missing a limb. But once that passed, what it made way for was a new found independence that I personally needed to move forward in life and be happy.
If I could speak to someone who is in the same position that I was when I wrote ‘Apology’, I would say something along the lines of; you will be okay, in fact you will be more than okay and so will they, don’t waste your time away all because of fear.
