March 8, 2022

First, a warning. This piece is entirely self-indulgent and the result of the reflection that comes with graduation.

Freshman year, all I wanted to do was grow up. I wanted to find myself and new music and new dreams and I wanted to know that one thing I could do for the rest of my life and I wanted everything. Now I’m a senior, and all I want is to start my life over again. I have some regrets with my academics and platonic relationships, but really I’m just nostalgic about how things used to be.

I can’t glamorize my middle school years. I doubt most of us can. But there was a time when learning was simpler. There was a time when I didn’t feel like I was bluffing my way through every assignment. There was a time when I went to my parents for solace instead of running myself out of my own home.

Like so many people, I recapture those memories through music. I was never a 'Swiftie' as a kid because the boy I had a crush on hated her, but I’ll never forget sitting on my mom’s floor in third grade listening to “You Belong With Me” for the first time. I’ll never forget sitting in the master bathroom asking my mom what music to download on my MP3 player and she told me to play The Killers. I’ll never listen to some of their songs without remembering a friend’s casual lie. I’ll never forget hitting my emo phase freshman year or the boy who introduced me to it, and I’ll never forget what they taught me about myself.

I’m sure you’ve heard that music is the soundtrack of our lives a million times. Isn’t it true for so many of us? Everything I just described reminds me of a moment, like spending time with my mom. Being in my third grade classroom. Standing in the middle school main lobby, suddenly seeing the truth. For some My Chemical Romance songs, it reminds me of a whole montage of lunches laughing and study halls smiling into my phone and then crying every night for three weeks. Moments just like you would remember while listening to a core part of the soundtrack of a movie that affected you. The moment and the music just go together, working in tandem to hit you like an emotional truck.

Maybe without this music, I would forget. There are artists that I’ve forgotten and rediscovered, and the memories come flooding back. I don’t ever want to forget. I regret not having kept a journal. All the little moments matter so much to me, and I don’t want to lose them. When I’m older, I’ll wish I had a journal from this year. Instead, I already have artists in mind that will remind me of this time and the people I love. Here’s to hoping I have the people there to remind me instead of the songs.