At the foot of my bed, three posters adorn my wall. One is a printed-out paper collage featuring pink flowers and a girl in a wonderfully large hat and white dress fishing pasted on the backdrop of an old map and a long road. Printed out in all capital, old-timey-newspaper-style letters are the lyrics “She knows she lived through it to get to this moment” from Phoebe Bridger’s “Graceland Too.”
The girl in “Graceland Too” escapes by herself. It’s not triumphant nor dramatic, she simply saunters out of the familiar to face her fears. She doesn’t go back to where she came from. Instead, she moves forward, finding her way to Graceland after being reminded of Elvis.
Much like the girl in the song, I believe that—when we are ready– we need to take the first steps to make changes in our lives.
Even in the darkest moments, I believe that there is always a Graceland, something to save you from yourself and revive you.
I believe songs can come true.
I often say that I didn’t gain consciousness until I was 18. My mental health was so bad for most of middle and high school that I became completely dissociated, paralyzed by anxiety.
My re-introduction into society was slow and unpronounced. I quite subtly “made up my mind and laced up my shoes”—I was ready to regain control of my life. What no one warned me was that I would have to make up my mind and lace up my shoes every single day.
Unlike “Graceland Too,” I have yet to find my Graceland. I don’t know what I want or what I want to do. I haven’t yet found peace.
I still feel like I live in a constant state of estrangement, and I don’t doubt that this is a common feeling, the lack of belonging.
Maybe I don’t know what I’m looking for, but the feeling I get when I listen to “Graceland Too” and hear “So we spent what was left of our serotonin, To chew on our cheeks and stare at the moon, Said she knows she lived through it to get to this moment, Ate a sleeve of saltines on my floor, and I knew then, I would do anything you want me to”, makes me feel like I haven’t yet found it.
“Graceland Too” also reminds us of those we love who struggle and those who care for us when we struggle. We never suffer alone. Even when your thoughts blur the rest of the world, others can still see you clearly.
Maybe my vision is still clouded, and I can’t fully see the love that surrounds me because there is love surrounding me—I can sense it. I just can’t quite feel it.
I don’t know what Graceland is to me. I don’t know if I believe Graceland is a person, a place or a thing. I do, however, believe that I lived through it to get to this moment, and this moment, and the next, will bring me to my Graceland, too.