I cry literally every time I hear Put Your Records On

 

"Just more than I could take
Pity for pity's sake (ooh)
Some nights kept me awake
I thought that I was stronger
When you gonna realize
That you don't even have to try any longer?
Do what you want to" 

 I don't recall when I heard Corinne Bailey Rae's Put Your Records On for the first time. It's an infectious track about being yourself and giving yourself permission not to fear the future, if even just for a moment. It's also a song about loving yourself. It's a song about rejecting shame for your black features it's... It's about as close to a perfect piece of art as humankind can create.

When I was younger, it was a billboard hit mostly like any other. People liked it, it got lots of radio play, it made it onto those compilation CDs with big hits and I'm sure I ripped one of mine to put onto a cheap MP3 player, and later onto my Nokia when phones started doubling as music players.

In my adult life I'd catch myself singing the chorus to myself on idle moments when I can be vulnerable to sing like no one is watching. It stuck with me. It always did.

Some months after I managed to admit to myself that I'm trans, I heard it again. And I don't mean I was just listening to the song, no, I heard it. Words written as if they were spoken to me, personally. The curls I used to wish were straight? Don't you let those other boys fool you, gotta love that afro hairdo. The fear about what being trans might mean for me, as a person, as if I was a stranger to myself? The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same. And that feeling of being lost in my twenties? You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.

I'm listening to the song as I write this, I've had it on repeat. I have not stopped crying since it randomly came on through a generated playlist on YouTube Music. I cry literally every time I hear this song. It speaks as if it knew me better than I knew myself, it comforts as if it is a close friend, it soothes all the aches I carry around in my soul and one of these days I might not cry but that day will not come soon.

 "Maybe sometimes
we feel afraid but it's alright
The more they start to change
The more you stay the same
Don't you think it's strange"

It's dark out there right now. Seems like all of the worst people in the world want to blame society's ills on trans people. And it's scary to be a person of colour, and as a trans woman of colour, sometimes... Sometimes it's hard to be myself. Sometimes its hard not to wish I was different in one way or another. Sometimes I'm a lost girl afraid of the future, feeling hated for being non-white, feeling hated for being trans, feeling alone and tired of having to be strong and thick skinned all the time and on the verge of a breakdown...

And then I'm reminded to put my music on, and that someone hopes I'll get my dreams and that even if I am lost, I'm gonna find myself. Somewhere, somehow.

 I don't have something deep and profound to say really, I just... There's this song I know that turns me into a weepy little mess and I wanted to share that with you. Thanks for listening.

From Luna, with love.