This is my first substack post! I’ve had substack for quite some time, but I’ve been sitting on an opportunity to use it. I am excited to create a space here for me to channel my many big emotions, get feedback on my writing, and connect with other people. I suppose that starting a digital diary while going into my freshman year of college is the best time to do that. It could end up providing some comfort as I grow accustomed to my new surroundings.
New surroundings and the reality of college closing in have been a large point of distress in my life recently. I have never been one to lean in to change. I struggle with it immensely. Even when I am excited for the change that is happening, I can’t stop myself from dwelling. The looming presence of college approaching has been causing some conflicting feelings for me recently. I think my description of the new school year having a “looming presence” is telling enough. Feelings of crippling nostalgia have been plaguing my life the past few weeks.
I was driving home tonight from dropping off a friend after an evening smoke sesh and I decided to take Broad Street home. For those of you who don’t live in Columbus, Broad Street runs completely from the west side of town, through downtown, past the Leveque tower and the State Capitol building, all the way to the east side before the city cuts off into the suburbs. So, I was driving West to East listening to Time to Pretend by MGMT and I began to think about how that song has been such a tremendous presence in my life during points of significant change.
The first time I listened to Time to Pretend was when I was nine years old. I got an iPod shuffle for my birthday and my dad spent the afternoon downloading songs on to it for me. My father is a man of class and was set on me developing a well curated and diverse music taste. Pop punk bands, slow bluegrass-y folk, A Tribe Called Quest, and the influential indie sleaze movement of the early 2010s blessed my young ears with an early understanding of good music. As a deeply emotional child, with an equally emotional Dad, I quickly grew to understand the impact that a good song has on the soul and the psyche.
I’ve carried that understanding with me through many of the milestones I have reached throughout the past ten years. Time to Pretend is one of a few songs that have become significant markers of my moments of growth. The echoing words of Andrew VanWyngarden’s “I’m feeling rough, I’m feeling raw / I’m in the prime of my life” over whiny new wave electro and passionate drums has found their way into my most vulnerable moments.
The Bands sings about partying in Paris, living a life of luxury and risk. This adolescent freedom from responsibility presents itself as the perfect solution to the fear that is brought along with growing up. Fear of not knowing what is next, what next feels like. MGMT describes how avoiding discomfort, living fast and dying young, is the only way to cope with the overwhelming nature of growing up. They ask the question “Yeah, it’s overwhelming, but what else can we do? / Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute?”. This concept truly haunts me. What else CAN we do? MGMT tells us that we are fated to pretend. We are fated to avoid facing how quickly our lives are passing by. I am terrified of the adult life that awaits me, and I understand this fear the most during the summer while I drive with my windows down. I understand that in all other moments I am fated to pretend that my fear is not killing me.
I find the vulnerable moments before life changing events to be one of my favorite features of human existence. I feel so infinitely small but as if I have a heart too large for the world to comprehend. Those quiet moments, which for me usually occur on drives, are some of the most intimate times we will experience with ourselves. I have never understood myself more than when I am cruising down Broad Street at one in the morning, MGMT rattling my car speakers, windows down, cold summer breeze. I can describe this to you and you know the feeling I’m describing. Ethel Cain’s “The Ring” (the ring, the great dark, and proximity to god (youtube.com).
When I am approaching this feeling of complete transparency with myself, I find that I am always hit in those moments with the most crushing nostalgia I have ever experienced. The kind that keeps you up at night. I think that nostalgia is all the more impactful because of music, specifically because of the music that helps to achieve this feeling of transcendence and total understanding. It connects us to younger, more naive versions of ourselves.
Time to Pretend is the song that comes to mind for me that creates the most nostalgia. In addition to the fact that I have listened to it hundreds of times, many with my father, MGMT has purposely curated that feeling in their lyricism.
“I’ll miss the playgrounds and the animals and digging up worms / I’ll miss the comfort of my mother and the weight of the world / I’ll miss my sister, miss my father, miss my dog, and my home / Yeah, I’ll miss the boredom, and the freedom, and the time spent alone”.
These lyrics ring out as the music fades a bit, highlighting the words. The production of this bridge helps those words impact the listener in a unique way. It provides a pause, a beat, in the upbeat fun of the rest of the song. The pretending stops and the reality of time passing hits. These few lines have always been the most difficult for me to listen to. Especially in this moment, driving through Downtown, grappling with the thought of moving to college in two days, the streetlights providing warmth, I cannot stop thinking about how I am growing older, and my life is changing before my eyes. I cannot stop thinking about all that I will miss, experiences that I will legitimately no longer be able to return to because I am choosing to take this next step in my life. I cannot stop thinking about how this feeling in my chest, this crippling nostalgia, has been there my whole life, and I am driving, and I am thinking “Will I ever be at peace with how time has passed?”.
As these feelings hit me in large, unbearable waves, MGMT is answering their own question. “But there is really nothing, nothing we can do / Love must be forgotten, life can always start up anew”. There is nothing I can do to make myself feel better about growing up. Life keeps going and it keeps moving. I will go to college, and I will change in millions of new ways. I will be a completely different person in four years, just like I am a completely different person than I was when I was starting high school. I changed and I didn’t die. I changed and it was good. I changed and it was good.
I suppose I can give you an answer to my question. “Will I ever be at peace with how time has passed?”. The short answer is no. No, I will not. The long answer is that no one ever has been and that is something I must accept. Humans will always fear what we don’t understand, and time is something that I doubt we ever fully will. The human brain can’t comprehend time passing in a way that does not spark terror. We can’t comprehend time passing in a way that does not force us to face what little time we have left. I think in many ways we should feel grateful for that. It forces us to appreciate the time that we do have more than we otherwise would. The human mind must know how to look back on itself and smile. It must understand how valuable experience is. It must understand that we control how our time is spent, how we want to cope with our reality, and how to know when it’s time to pretend and when it’s time to accept the change.