Office DJ: Songs to Grow Up To

Last semester, I took a creative writing class where one day, we only wrote about anything using "I remember" statements. I was stopped in my tracks.

I've always felt like I have something to write about; I'm an English major, after all. I always have a story to complain about in exaggerated detail or a dulcet-sweet moment to write down for the days when I need it — but then and there, I came up with nothing. No big, prose-worthy moments flooded my mind. I just thought. Then it clicked. 

For the years and months where I don’t remember much, I have songs. Music is my timeline and songs demarcate time in my little notebook. Jumbled genres, moods and lyrics calling the duly remembered names, people, places and memories of growing up with forward momentum. I’m a writer, not a musician. I don’t play any instruments or sing. But, music is often my impetus to remember, and my favorite way of remembering is through writing.

I ended up writing a 15-page memoir essay about "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers as a guiding motif in my life for that class' final. Once I started seeing songs as moments, I couldn't stop. 

I’ve wanted “Mary’s Song (Oh My My My)” by Taylor Swift on my wedding playlist since I was a 9-year-old with choppy bangs that scribbled sweet nothings into a bedazzled composition book everywhere I went. I didn’t have a clue what love was, but it sure sounded pretty when hearing it sung about. 

I drove my first car, a Black Honda Accord that I named Marianne, without a license at 15 listening to Modern Baseball’s "You’re Gonna Miss It All." It's funny how angry I was listening to those sounds. It was before I got sick, before I really felt loss, before I really had anything to be angry about. 

I’ve held onto every song in Indigo De Souza’s breakout album, "I Love My Mom," as the anthems of my teenage heartbreak. I played her song “17” almost every day of age 17 in my car. I really thought she was an angel speaking to me through song, but really, I was just mad about the experiences and places that I knew deep down would be left in that year.

I've sang Kenny Rogers' part of "Islands In the Stream" with my little sister too many times to count on my way to drop her off at some middle school event or to some horse-related event. Now, she drives me around. I held my two best friends to "Long Live" by Taylor Swift before we parted ways internationally and cross-country for college. I've danced with my new friends to Grimes and other hyper-pop nonsense in crowded, bright rooms when I got here. I've driven home from an accidental first date smiling ear to ear to my favorite Silver Jews album. Music makes me realize I've lived a lot more than I think I have.

But, one of the qualities of music that I love the most is, it doesn’t all have to be happy.

One of my favorite writers, Virginia Woolf, wrote, “I pitched into my great lake of melancholy. Lord how deep it is! What a born melancholic I am!" in her novel "The Waves." My melancholic lake is clearest through the colors of music — my favorite songs are personal literature of memory and emotion, stories of light and dark that throw me into the bright, the beloved and the unknown of my before, my now and my soon. 

This particular melancholy brings me here, to The Daily Tar Heel office. A place I’ve laughed, cried, worked, wrote and loved in. I'd like to think I've given this paper my all.

I can remember listening to a mix of "Hamilton" and Tyler Childers on election nights (weird combo, I know) with Ethan, Lucy and KG. Talking with Carson about what really qualifies something as Midwest Emo. Gushing over our shared Lana Del Rey album rankings with Laney. Listening to Wilco on the couch while trying to write this same column around this time last year, but letting it slip past me. Today, I'm sitting in the office supply closet on my last day and writing this, trying so hard to not let this slip past me. 

My dear friend (and DTH older brother) Ethan Horton put it best in his farewell column — you might learn to despise the place, but it’s the people who make it all worth it. I’ve given this paper my all, and by God, I’ve loved so hard here. 

In her song "Jackson," alt-country singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams sings about leaving a person and a place, traveling through the South, repeating that she'll miss them less and less when she gets to each next destination. That's kind of how I feel about the nonsense that is growing up and growing out of songs you used to love, people you used to see everyday and places that were like home to you — it hurts until it doesn't. A part of me thinks I won't miss The DTH much, but I know I'll just have to get there. 

"All the way to Jackson, I don't think I'll miss you much," she croons — over and over again. 

I’m leaving so I can keep growing up. But, I’m never going to forget how I grew up here and what I listened to while I did it. 

@wslivingston_