Books. Movies. TV Shows. Songs. Nothing is free from the endless loop in my life when I re-watch, re-listen, re-read any of my favorites. Comfort is evoked when I click on The Abyss by The Weeknd & Lana Del Rey for the tenth time that day, or when I go back to season 1 of Atypical immediately after finishing the last episode of the series. I know how each song, movie, book, and show will start. I know how it will end, and that’s where the comfort lies.
I’ve never been fond of change. When I buy a new pair of shoes, I despise that new shoe feeling. Instead of being met with the reassuring feeling of them being worn in, I’m met with an almost uncomfortable feeling and left with painful blisters at the end of the day. When my friend group fell apart in my first year of college, I felt like that was the end of the world. I had to deal with the changes of having people I thought would be my friends for the entirety of college, and even post-graduation, to no longer have these people in my life.
Some changes are just meant to be, and often painful turns bring about the best of things. Buying new shoes may have temporary discomfort, but soon, they will be broken in too, and I will forget the times that my white Converse gave me blisters on Halloween. My friend group falling apart in my freshman year? World-shattering at the time, but now I find myself with a group of friends that I couldn’t imagine being without. Friends that I laugh the hardest with, where we sit on the couch watching movies, and spilling tea in our group chat between classes.
Still, I will always choose to rewatch, reread, or relisten to whatever I want to my heart’s content. It’s where I find myself being the happiest, and they are things that I can depend on to never change. As I begin sending in my grad school applications and consider what I’ll do after I go back home to New York City after the school year ends, I start to feel anxious about the unknown. Still, I can always depend on my favorite book, movie, song, or TV show – they always end the same way. My fingers will happily hit replay every time.