I measure my life in playlists.
Every few months, my taste changes the way the air does: suddenly, quietly, and entirely. It’s not about the charts or trends. It’s about how the world feels when I open my windows, the kind of light that slips through, and what my heart is trying to say that words can’t.
Summer starts loud. The season that doesn’t walk in—it roars, engine running, boots on the dash. Country music takes over my brain like the smell of gasoline and sunscreen.
“She’s Country” by Jason Aldean blares through my car speakers, all sunburn and unapologetic charm. There’s a specific thrill in shouting along to “She’s a party-all-nighter from South Carolina, a bad mamma-jamma from down in Alabama” while stuck in traffic, pretending my old Buick is a 1965 Old Chevy pickup.
Then comes Luke Bryan’s “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye,” that sweet heartbreak disguised as a good time. There’s a boy in it somewhere—there always is. The kind who texts “you up?” just as the sky turns purple. The kind I’ll dance with barefoot in the kitchen, pretending it’s love when it’s really just humidity.
My cat watches from the counter, her eyes half-closed, unimpressed by the drama. She’s seen this movie before. Still, I play the song again. Because country music isn’t subtle—it’s big and messy and sun-streaked.
It’s how I learn to love the endings almost as much as the beginnings.
By fall, I’m softer. Quieter. My playlists shift to match the season’s slow unraveling. I light a candle that smells like bourbon and nostalgia, and suddenly everything is cinematic.
Lizzy McAlpine’s “Pushing It Down and Praying” plays, and I swear she wrote it for girls like me—overthinkers with too much heart and not enough self-control. I walk to class in oversized sweaters, watching leaves tumble like they’re letting go on purpose.
Then, Jeff Buckley enters the chat with “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over.” His voice stretches across the room like smoke. “It’s never over, my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder.” I play it late at night, sprawled across my bed, cat pressed against my feet, as if she knows heartbreak vibrates best in company.
Fall is my season of almosts. Almost saying how I feel, almost moving on, almost content. And then there’s Frank Ocean’s “Pyramids,” which doesn’t just play—it unfolds. Eleven minutes of love and loss and everything in between.
I let it loop while doing homework sometimes, the golden light from my living room window melting into something that feels like memory.
I think that’s why I love fall. It gives me permission to feel too much. It’s the time for rain-soaked playlists, for reflection that turns into revelation. It’s when I become both the main character and the audience, crying at my own movie because the soundtrack is just that good.
Winter doesn’t even try to be subtle. It arrives like silence after the music stops. Everything is stripped and bare.
My playlists go into hibernation; I live off of leftovers from fall. The songs that ache quietly. The world slows down, and I follow. Some nights, I trade music for the hum of my fan and the rhythmic purring of my cat.
There’s peace in that stillness, in pressing pause and realizing not every moment needs a song. Sometimes, the absence of noise says more than a lyric ever could.
But spring always finds a way back in. It doesn’t ask permission. It just bursts through the door, loud and a little chaotic. Suddenly, rap feels right. The beat matches my pulse, my need to wake up again.
“Still Think About You” by A Boogie Wit da Hoodie plays as I throw open my windows. It’s honest, sharp around the edges, but still hopeful—like love letters you’ll never send but can’t throw away.
Then there’s “DONTTRUSTME” by 3HO!3, a chaotic anthem for my rebirth. “T-t-t-tell your boyfriend, if he says he’s got beef, that I’m a vegetarian, and I ain’t f**king scared of him.”
Ridiculous? Completely. Necessary? Absolutely.
It’s what I blast while cleaning my room, or dancing in a towel after a shower, trying to convince myself I’m not still thinking about the one who ghosted me in October.
My cat darts around like a furry backup dancer, proof that joy is sometimes just noise and movement and not caring how you look.
Spring teaches me not to take heartbreak or myself too seriously. It’s messy, alive, and full of contradiction. Flowers bloom even when it’s still cold out. I’m still healing, but the world insists on color anyway.
And then the cycle begins again. Country returns with the heat, and I remember that the year spins like a record. Scratched in places, but still playing.
Every season brings its own mood, its own melody, its own way of reminding me I’m alive.
Music holds the memories my mind can’t. The boy from that one summer, the tearful walks in November, the quiet winter mornings, the reckless laughter of spring nights—they all exist somewhere between verses. I live vicariously through them, through the voices that say what I can’t.
If you walked into my apartment right now, you’d probably hear something playing—maybe Olivia Dean, or maybe SZA. My cat would be perched on the cat tree by the window, tail twitching like she’s keeping time.
Outside, the seasons are changing. Inside, they never really stop.