Okay, okay, okay. I promised myself I wouldn’t get sentimental about the end of the year because, let’s face it I’ve barely scratched the surface of my time at university… but because I’m a try-hard intrepid loser I still get emotional about the passage of time.

So here’s a playlist about general human reactions to change and the passage of time with the added bonus of some poetry by Natasha Trethewey.  We did a huge unit on her poetry in my AP Lit class my senior year and I really enjoyed it.  She even came to the University of Kansas to speak and my class got to go.  She read the poem below out loud and it quickly became one of my favourites.

I love the last couplet because it recognizes people change and move on all the time… that who you were last year is different than who you are today.  Who you were a few hours, minutes, seconds ago may be different.  That change is expected and celebrated, so that the person can look back on it fondly because humans aren’t static.  I guess, it just fits into what I always tell myself, not to try to be a different person but only a better version of yourself.  Anyway, enjoy!

Theories of Time and Space

You can get there from here, though

there’s no going home.

Everywhere you go will be somewhere

you’ve never been. Try this:

head south on Mississippi 49, one-

by-one mile markers ticking off

another minute of your life. Follow this

to its natural conclusion—dead end

at the coast, the pier at Gulfport where

riggings of shrimp boats are loose stitches

in a sky threatening rain. Cross over

the man-made beach, 26 miles of sand

dumped on the mangrove swamp—buried

terrain of the past. Bring only

what you must carry—tome of memory,

its random blank pages. On the dock

where you board the boat for Ship Island,

someone will take your picture:

the photograph—who you were—

will be waiting when you return.