I typically have a hard time telling people these things. I can’t pinpoint why. Maybe because stubborn misunderstandings can lead to inaccurate perceptions? Vulnerability issues, maybe? After you heavily seasoned your hash browns with pepper at the Waffle House off Walnut St, I was driving us back to my brother’s place so you could pick up your car. We had been conversing on a wide variety of things, which is the usual for us. Romance, music, school, etc. We can talk about anything at any time anywhere, and if for some odd reason there should ever be a lack of words between us, I'm more than confident I would be able to find comfort in our silence.

I first heard this song Summer of 2014. It was on some video about love that I just so happened to watch that was shared on my Facebook timeline. As I watched the video, at the time I was in a very serious relationship, so I really resonated with a bunch of elements in the video. I don’t think I’m doing a good job of setting up this story, nonetheless the video was pretty much a bunch of memes about love. It wasn’t troll memes either, it was things such as, “Having someone to wake up to is better than finding someone to sleep with.” Yes a few were corny, but when you’re in love, nothing is ever really too cliché or too corny. That comes with the territory. It’s as simple as that. The song played in the background was this song. Treat Me Like Somebody. I fell in love with the song as the video progressed.

Aight let’s get into it. This song reminds me of my second year of college. Prior to that second year of college, randomly during that summer I had developed anxiety. Between the months of June and August I went to the ER 5 different times, and to multiple different doctors of different fields. I even had a colonoscopy, which is like 30 years ahead of my time for anybody that knows what that is. Back to sophomore year though, that was the last time I really felt young. Because you know how things go, we kind of subconsciously base how we feel through the standards of life and our perceptions of other people’s idea of progress. Meaning, it was my second year, so, ideally, I should be younger than half the people there generally speaking. This is a big assumption, but in this life, you can live based off of your assumptions. Is this a good thing? Most times, no not at all. But in this case, this assumption didn’t really harm me either way. I had moved into a townhouse with my roommate from freshman year, his best friend, and one of my homies.

I sat in front of the Cookout on North Tryon as Kelsey told me that “nothing in this life is permanent” before we went our separate ways prior to the summer of 2012. That always stuck with me. Due to the temporary nature of things, we must learn to let go. As unnatural as letting go feels, it’s a part of a life in which we’ve conditioned ourselves to feel the opposite. Holding on, many times, is a direct product of having hope. I’ve learned that having hope in the wrong things (or people) is really hopelessness in disguise of insecurity. Insecure by self-perception of societal standards we all are, but certainly flawed by nature through the creation of our Gods/stars, which ever you may believe in.