Sundowning to me reminds me of my childhood. A lot of emotions, having no control over what was going on around me, learning not how things are supposed to work but instead how they work in a painful reality, traumas setting up mental structures. The album is soothing in a way.
TPWBYT feels like my early 20s. The drama, the sex, the emotion. I can trace where I am now to a single night then. Learning what desperate futile love was, learning it doesn’t actually matter. Building relationships and having them ripped away. This album makes me want to write stories, poetry, anything to better exemplify what it makes me feel.
TMBTE feels like after I lost most of what I’d gained in my early 20s. Building myself up because that’s all I could rely on. Learning how to tell people “No” when I needed to, establishing boundaries. The shit I still had to fight, and the blessings in the form of new people to love. And that beginning of nostalgia, looking back over where I’d come from. I can’t describe how this album feels without comparing it to religious worship services I had to attend as a child. Everyone seemed so enraptured, am I supposed to feel that way too? I’ll raise my hands and sing just to look how I’m supposed to. This album feels how that worship service should’ve felt.
Even in Arcadia feels like my 30s currently. I can rely on myself, and I’ve established boundaries and in fact I should reconsider their rigidity now that I have people who care about me, who have stuck with me this far. The drama is only what I allow in my life, but I swear some of it is still tempting. But I want to grow here. I can now look back over the years that brought me here and know that I wish that pain hadn’t happened … but I wouldn’t be here without it. This album feels very freeing. I wish I could lay in the middle of nowhere, staring at the night sky, and just listen to this album.
