Wrapped Up
Spotify Wrapped & my evolving relationship to music
Special December note: Custom poems are $5 off on my website for the whole month! If you’re still on the hunt for a special gift, allow me to type up something for ya. :-)
By the time I was three, I had the lyrics to a wide catalog of music memorized. Dixie Chicks, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bowling For Soup. Music is my first memory of recognizing what it meant to tell a story. I remember seeing the imagery play in my head. It was almost reading before reading.
My dad is a musician. He’s a wicked guitar player and sings in a smooth, easy voice. He writes songs and records them. Growing up, he could often be found sitting on the couch, guitar in hand, lost in a riff, after a 12-hour work day.
Music has been part of my identity long before I learned to play instruments myself. I distracted myself from some of the most unbearable times of my life with the practice of soundtracking. That is, listening to music that described how I felt and pretending it was romantic. Like I was a girl in an indie movie who was about to turn her life around.
This was never more true than when I lived in Denver, where I moved a year after my mother died. Growing up in a relatively small town, I relished in putting in my headphones and walking through the city with my soundtrack on. I listened to Lorde, Frank Ocean, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Mac Miller, Dijon. I clung so tightly to the emotions these songs emanated, relied on them to emotionally process for me. I loved the way they could animate my heartbreak so shiningly. Even today, if I hear a song I listened to back then, my whole body reacts to it (re: Moon River by Frank Ocean).
In 2021, living in Michigan again, a couple major things happened. I started anti-depressants in February and met the love of my life in May. Falling in love with Rachael, and her falling in love with me, disproved something I’d always been vaguely suspicious of: I was destined to be a loner. It proved I could have joy in abundance. I did not have to be so married to melancholy.
This was changing my relationship to music. If I did not listen to music to commiserate, to compound my broken heart, to feel with my whole body—what did I listen to it for? Moreover, should I listen to music, or is it just another way I escape? I have so many modes of escape and completely dissolving into anything besides myself: reality TV, Instagram, snacks. I felt so powerless over my own mood in the face of music I loved.
Slowly, I listened less to music and got into podcasts for the first time. Spoiler: podcasts can also be used to dissolve into! Alas, I needed a reset with music. I needed to break my habit of using it as a means to stay committed to being sad. And I think I did.
The last week or so, I have been listening to more music again. I’m noticing how much I missed it. How much I missed this facet of myself. I’m listening to music conveying emotions across the spectrum, but now, more than anything, I listen to dance. To appreciate a boppy beat, clever lyrics, a silky voice. I’m not looking for depression porn.
