30 before 30 :: the songs

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These are the defining songs of the last decade of my life.

They aren’t necessarily my favorites. There’d be some overlap but, mostly, that would be a different list. These are the songs that shaped me, that found a spot in my heart and stayed. These are the songs I have a visceral reaction to — they bring me back to moments, remind me of places, or make me think of humans who, even if they’re not in my life anymore, helped create who I am.

There’s Hamilton. Of course. For half of this decade, I listened to this album more than anything else. I know every word and I worked embarrassingly hard to be able to kind of rap ‘Guns and Ships.’ I sobbed to ‘Burn’ in the back corner of a theatre in Chicago, fresh off the biggest heartache of my decade. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing or where I am, ‘Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story’ will make me cry every time. This musical has pushed me to write, create, and take chances I didn’t think I could (or should).

There are the songs from college: ‘I Won’t Give Up’ is a song I can’t *stand* now but was all I listened to when my college boyfriend and I broke up. ‘Call Me Maybe’ brings me back to the middle of the crowded Old Broadway dance floor, buzzed on Wonder Woman shots and hoping I’d run into Cute Justin, my rebound crush. ‘Some Nights’ reminds me of the endless runs that Megan and I went on the summer before our senior year, and the talks we had as we tried to sort through what the hell we were going to do with our lives.

There are the Portland songs: ‘This Is The Beginning’ is Steph and I in our empty apartment, before we brought in our haphazardly-assembled furniture and before we made a life in that city. ‘There Will Be A Light’ is sitting in the pews at Salt & Light Lutheran Church, a building that became my community.  ‘Rivers and Roads’ is my final drive away from Portland, through the Columbia Gorge when I wondered what the hell might be waiting for me in Minnesota.

There are the songs that accompanied me on the big lessons of this decade: ‘The Climb’ reminds me that I shouldn’t run a half-marathon if I haven’t run a single mile in a long while. And that I don’t actually like running long distances at all. ‘Give Me Everything’ by Pitbull and ‘Bitch, I’m Madonna,’ ironically, remind me about deep friendship and the lifesaving role of my circle. ‘Heavy’ reminds me not to abandon myself for anyone or anything that makes me feel inferior.

I could add 31 more songs to share stories about from this decade. I could make lists of lyrics or books or quotes or places or even the food I’ve consumed that’s somehow shaped me these last ten years. Maybe I will, and maybe you should too, even if you’re not turning 30 on April 1st. If anything, this exercise has reminded me that everything has purpose. I believe it’s all part of shaping who we are, even if it feels small or insignificant at the time.

When I listen to ‘I Can Change’ on repeat for a month straight? That’s probably going to help me believe that I’m capable of change. When I reread ‘Tiny Beautiful Things’ every year? Those words are going to stick close to me and come to me when I need some wisdom. The fact that I’ve had the same salad for most weekdays of the past four years? Well, at least I’m getting my vegetables. It all stays with us, inside of us somewhere.

And. One last thing. It’s not a fair question to ask of myself, and yet, my very favorite song on this list? ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ by Whitney Houston. There are so many core moments from the past ten years connected to this song: it’s been my karaoke selection in so many cities, singing my heart out to a crowd of strangers and watching them sing along with me. It’s the song I dance to in my bathroom as I get ready for an exciting or hard day. It’s an immediate mood booster when I hear it out in the world, like in the grocery store or in the middle of a workout class.

And while this song is lighthearted, its words are also a reminder of a journey I’ve been on this past decade. Because I do wanna dance with somebody, and I do want to find someone who loves me. But another journey I’ve been on in my 20s? I’ve learned how to love and dance with myself — and that’s been just as worthwhile.

this is a story.

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This is a story of the closest thing I’ve had to love-at-first-sight paired with the biggest heartbreak I’ve yet to know. The feelings are years old now; I wrote most of this in late 2016, when the breakup was raw but my memory was clear. I added a few things in early 2017, after time had passed and I saw Hamilton and my feelings morphed from anguish to acceptance. This story is years old, though I’ve returned to it a few times each year, wondering if this was the time to finally hit “Publish.”

And now is the time. Not because of any anniversary or revelation or resurfacing feelings, but because these words do no good sitting with the other 21 drafts I have in my “Writing” folder. Though these feelings and this story are old, they were mine. Are mine, still. And putting them into the world is a reminder — to me and to you — that there is no shame in loving hard, hurting deeply, and the work it takes to pick yourself up from that. I reread this story and see — I can feel — who I was that summer, that season of love and heartbreak, that October night when I wrote most of this.

Maybe you will find a piece of yourself in these words, too.

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I walked into my apartment after work and it felt void of him. The lights were off and it was already dark outside; I worked well past five-’o-clock to avoid this exact moment. The floor was clean; I power cleaned last night, when I’m stressed or sad or need something I can control. It was as if, through last night’s fervid vacuuming and dusting, I could will any trace of him from this place.

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He was the first guest in my home. He came to visit two weeks after I moved in, ten days after I started a new job.

“Is that going to be okay?” he asked, cautious and careful of providing space, allowing time to settle and be alone. 

“Of course,” I replied. “I want you here. I want you to be a part of this.”

He was the first to see my color-coordinated books on their shelves. He crouched over to read all of their spines before taking off his jacket, turning back to me to ask when I had gotten this one, how I had liked that one. He raised an eyebrow when he saw I owned “My Struggle” by Karl Ove Knausgaard, found the spine of “Becoming Wise,” the book we had both been reading when we met. His one carry-on bag for the weekend, which I’d learn was typical of his minimalism-except-books lifestyle, was the first thing to sit in my mustard chair, spilling open with the four books he brought for the plane.

He was the first to sleep in my bed; it had been delivered just hours before he arrived, which was not the plan. It should have arrived a week or so before, but a mix-up with the IKEA order and the IKEA delivery company brought it to my apartment during my lunch hour on the day of his arrival. I scrambled to put on sheets and a comforter, pretending like I had not been sleeping on a makeshift bed on the floor for two weeks. He crawled into this new bed even before I did, while I was washing my face at the sink and feeling self-conscious about my choice of sleeping attire, and my whole life he was witnessing.

We hadn’t seen each other since the beginning of June, and even then we hadn’t spent more than 80-some hours together. We had been far from our homes, across the country for a conference unrelated to our day jobs. We were pulled together in a sterile, fluorescent-lit classroom by an icebreaker, a meet-and-greet game where everyone in the room stands up, the facilitator asks a question, and you travel to either side of the room based on your answer. This side for Coca Cola, the other side for Pepsi. This side for waking up early, the other for staying up late.

The third or fourth question was, “Are you planning to go to seminary?”; this side for yes, that side for no.

Our answers led us to the middle of the room. We found ourselves in a circle with two other faces I will never remember because I only saw him. 

“I’m not sure,” I said. 

“Me neither,” he said. “Maybe.” 

I talked about why, he talked about why, and I tried to remember the last time I made such prolonged eye contact with someone. The next question was asked. I don’t remember it, but I know we moved to opposite sides of the room. 

But we were pulled together again and again. We were signed up for the same breakout sessions. We ended up in the same small group for discussion. We sat near each other during presentations and meals and – finally, on the last night of the conference – at a bar with the rest of our newly-made friends.

We walked there together, slightly behind everyone else, talking and asking questions and digging deeper into who the other was. He wrote; I did, too, but not with as much discipline as him. I went to school in the Midwest; so had he. We cared about books and coffee and our families, had a complicated relationship with the church and God, and searched for (and usually found) meaning everywhere and in everything.

We arrived at the bar. A drag queen was singing “Don’t Stop Believin’” and we took shots of whiskey. We danced to Whitney Houston and drank gins. We danced to every song in a circle with our larger group until, finally, we found each other face-to-face. The music was still blaring, the drag queens singing another song, but it went silent for me as we left the bar so we could talk without the strobe lights. We found a bench and talked for almost four hours. We kissed a bit, too, but mostly talked and talked and talked until it was five-’o-clock in the morning and breakfast was at 7:30. I snuck back to my hotel room, my conference roommate peacefully asleep, and willed myself to obey the drag queen’s lyrics as I tried to fall asleep: Hold on to that feeling...

We sat next to each other at the final session the next morning. I remember nothing of what was said, but I remember when our knees moved from three inches to one inch away from each others’. He bought me a coffee before we left for the airport and asked if he could write to me, if we could stay in touch through letters. We did. He sent me letters and poems and his favorite book. I wrote back.

He came to visit.

He quickly became a home for me, for my heart and soul after weary days. I loved him so quickly, so deeply, so fully. That’s how love happens sometimes. It sneaks up on you and hits you over the head with the best kind of frying pan — but one that spits out cartoon hearts and unicorns and, instead of giving you a bump on the head, fills it with the reality of your love for this other being and their love for you. His was the conversation I looked forward to each night. Our trips to see each other were the highlight of each month. It was the kind of love that felt like home, that made me want to stay in each present moment because it was so, so good, but that also made me want to fast forward to see where it would lead us.

But sometimes, a different kind of frying pan sneaks up on you -- heartbreak. We did not last past fall, after secrets surfaced and I learned new truths and had to come to terms with a different reality of our time together. We broke up over the phone; he offered to fly to me, to work on this in person, but I went dancing with friends instead. I had a plane ticket to visit him booked for later that month, purchased the day before but already past the 24-hour refund deadline. I went anyway, saw Hamilton, visited friends, and didn’t reach out to see him.

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I will see him in my kitchen, standing at my counter and making a pour over for me; standing at my bookshelf, quietly brushing over each title; reading in my bed, lying on “his” side. He was here, had been here, and will always be a part of this time of my life, this home. But, slowly by slowly, I’ve been removing the traces of him: the photo of us taken at the bar pulled off the wall; the postcard he sent from a trip removed from the nightstand; the last of the coffee he brought for me gone. Those memories and traces have been pulled into a folder and tucked away in a corner of a closet.

And tonight, with the lights off and the quiet and few traces left of him, I could catch a glimpse of how this could be okay. How I will be okay, how my home will be my home, even without him. After I turned the lights on, and the reality reemerged – he is not here – I whispered:

But I still am.

alexander hamilton.

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"Why do you like Hamilton so much?"

I’ve been asked this question so many times that I've lost count. I'm not someone who obsessively knows about history, or identifies as extremely patriotic, or listens to hip hop and rap in my free time, so it's a question that’s asked with genuine curiosity. Sometimes the question is tinted with a bit of bewilderment. People see my Spotify feed repeat the tracks over and over, scroll through multiple Instagram posts about it, and widen their eyes as I know the details of the PBS documentary by heart and wonder, “Why?”. In some ways, Hamilton has become "my thing," so much so that my students and I once had a conversation where everyone named their own “Hamilton” -- something that they reeeeeeeeeeeally like a lot.

"Why do you like Hamilton so much?"

I always stumble over the answer when asked, and that answer often changes depending on who asks it. For someone who cares about music, I talk about the allusions to other musicals and 90s hip hop artists; for someone who writes, I share that there are 23,000+ words (!!!) in this work. For someone who cares about history, I talk about the intention behind casting people of color in leading roles, the accuracy of the story, and the years of research Lin-Manuel Miranda did before bringing Hamilton to life. And for someone who cares about me -- the real reason why I've listened to Hamilton nearly every day since I discovered it a year ago -- the answer is a little more complicated.

I remember listening to the Hamilton soundtrack all the way through for the first time. Afterwards, I couldn’t find the words for how I was feeling. Was I happy to have found a beautiful weaving of a story and music? Always. Was I jealous of how those badass sisters could belt? Obviously. Was I proud to be an American and even a small part of this country’s continuing story? I guess so. 

And then I zipped through my copy of Hamilton: The Revolution, the complete libretto with annotations from Lin-Manuel Miranda himself, essays by Jeremy McCarter, and photos from the production. In one of the essays, McCarter writes about Lin-Manuel’s inspiration from ‘Broadway old masters’ like John Kander, who composed Cabaret and Chicago. After seeing the show for the first time, Kander said of Hamilton:  

“I came away feeling like writing. Not writing like Lin, or doing a project like that — it was just that really, really good work makes me want to go to work.”

And there it was.

Listening to and researching and reading and memorizing and fangirling over Hamilton had made me want to create, too. Not a musical or a book or a song or anything related to the founding fathers. Some words on a page. Some something that makes me feel as excited and wide-eyed as I do when the first chords of the opening number start. I feel that way still, even after hundreds of plays through the soundtrack.

Because not only was Alexander Hamilton crazy about words (throughout the show, other characters reference Hamilton's obsession with writing) and wrote “like he was running out of time,” but Lin-Manuel Miranda is also dedicated to his craft. And both men are so damn passionate about what they’re doing — motivated and dedicated to keep doing it, tirelessly, and to try to leave the world with more, powerful, meaningful words than when they came. After reading that quote from John Kander, I realized that’s what I wanted to do, too. I wanted to go to work.

Last month, I splurged during a trip-gone-wonky to Chicago and bought myself tickets to see Hamilton. I overpaid and was in the nosebleed section (literally the top corner of the theater), but it was worth every penny and tear that I shed. 

I couldn't tell you what my favorite part of the night was. It might have been the eruption of applause and shrieks from the crowd when the lights dimmed, both at the beginning of the show and after intermission. Maybe it was the elderly couple two rows ahead of me who danced in their seats the entire night. Or it might have been the new ways the lyrics pierced me, given the state of our country and my heart on November 10th. Lyrics that become more and more relevant based on the election results: "You want a revolution? I want a revelation!" Songs like "Burn" that made me nod and cry and say, "Me too." 

But if I’m being honest, the most important part of the night happened after the show. I walked back to my hotel room and pulled out my journal and wrote. And the next morning I went to a coffee shop and pulled out my journal again and I wrote. 

And here I am, a few weeks later, writing. Even this — my first piece of non-Instagram or non-journal writing in over a month — feels like something. A small, slow step toward that work I want to do in the world. It feels a little electric, which is the best way I know how to describe the feeling I get when I know something isn’t big or flashy, but is important. It's that same feeling I get when I hear those opening chords of my favorite songs. It's the same feeling I'll get when I click "publish" on this writing. It's hard to put into words, but it's part of who I am.

We need to surround ourselves with our own Hamiltons — the things that make us want to do the work we are meant to do in the world and create the things we are meant to create. The things that inspire us, get us thinking and feeling, get us working on the things we might leave in this world, that hopefully make it a little bit better than when we arrived. 

So, what’s your Hamilton?