albums i listened to all the way through

posted this week and every week (7)

Mar 16, 2025

*For the week of March 9th-March 15th, 2025*

I can’t pretend. I had a bad week, or at least, a bad couple of days inside of it.

I listened to a few albums, but none of them were new to me. Instead, I held close to those that have brought me comfort over the years, in addition to some recent-ish ones I can’t stop listening to for even a day.

Throughout this new listening phase, I’ve come to consider everything more thoughtfully. There is so much intention behind listening to a record or a flipping over a tape—it requires all of my emotional energy. I have to let it all wash over me in waves. The needle drops, the record spins, the first few notes eek out of the speakers. Suddenly, it hits me like a freight train.

Somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention, I changed.

I watched Frances Ha last night. The following exchange of dialogue from the film made me laugh out loud and then cry.

Frances: Do I look old to you?
Benji: No. Yes.
Frances: How old?
Benji: Older than I am.
Frances: Older than 27?
Benji: No. 27 is old, though.

actual footage of me in the bathtub last night after a particularly grueling four hour depression nap before I watched this film

I don’t think 27 is old, but it’s not young either. It’s somewhere in the middle of those extremes. As much as I seem to be grasping at the straws of life—drifting, getting high, living paycheck-to-paycheck—everyone around me tells me I’m doing well. I live and work in the greatest city in the world. Yet, I still feel behind.

At seventeen, all I wanted to do was grow up—go to college, get a good job, maybe move to New York. I did all of those things, and yet, I still feel unbelievably behind.

When does growing up end and growing old begin?

Is it coming up on the season you turn twenty-seven? When you watch as the new crop comes to harvest and no longer see yourself reflected in their bright eyes? Is it longing for the peers you knew before they found love, marriage, and careers, the things you’ve yet to touch with your bare hands? Is it the realization that the things that used to bring you joy—chasing destiny, finding the “one,” achieving greatness, drinking for fun—no longer do what they used to?

No emotion is as strong as the one you memorize the moment you realize ten years have passed by in a flash. Your parents, teachers, and elders were right: this too shall pass. All the heartache was, in fact, more than the sum of its parts.

It all brought you to where you are right now: feeling simultaneously behind and trying to stay ahead. Still aware of your weaknesses, but more sure of your strengths. Shifting priorities and texts from friends bemoaning the rising cost of healthcare, rent, and groceries. Having to remind yourself to call your mother, finding you enjoy conversations with her more than you ever did as a teenager. Forever forgetting to call the doctor back, even when you desperately need to go.

All of it brought you here. You look back on being young now and wear like a badge of honor.

“I survived.”

They say youth is wasted on the young—that we’d all go back and change everything if we could. If we just had the wisdom back then that we do now, we could save ourselves the pain, embarrassment, and misery. Maybe maturity is actually coming to terms with the idea that, even if you could go back, you’re not sure you would.

Here are the albums I listened to this week: