Playlist: You’re Gonna be OK, Baby

Whenever someone is going through something, I send them this playlist. I made it for myself during a very dark, transitional time when things were both terrifying but exciting. This playlist has helped others with break ups, moving, grief, and lack of motivation tied to depression. It’s a great reminder — and the title track by MUNA is one of my favorite songs of the last few years. The truth is, if you’re going through something you likely feel it’ll last forever, and you won’t be okay. It takes everything to ‘fake it’ - and this is usually when I turn to music the most. So if you’re there, I hope this playlist helps you hold on just a little longer. There’s better days over the terrible hill that’s hiding the horizon, I promise.

Playlist: Dollar Store Garden State

It was the winter of 2021. I had just re-connected with the last remaining family I had on my estranged father’s side, and I was so excited I moved back to NY - because now I could develop this relationship and finally feel like I had some semblance of ‘normal’ family. I had spent years trying to figure out the Lebanese side of myself, and this was the missing link.

And then, when I moved back, this person passed away. I hadn’t seen them since I was 12 - and that would really be the last time I would see them. In any attempt to soften the blow, I went to their funeral. My friend offered to go with me, and to make the 5 hour drive upstate in a pending snowstorm just so I wouldn’t be alone.

Traveling back to your hometown you have avoided for years, for a funeral, is the plot of many movies, but also the plot of one I love very much - Garden State. Never one to skip out on adding humor to traumatic events, I told my friend we were basically living the dollar store version of Garden State. And so, this playlist was born.

That snowstorm did hit, and it did take us almost 6 hours to get there. When I listen to this playlist, I think back to that drive. The mix of feelings blended together to encompass my devastation, nervousness over the drive, appreciation for my friend - it’s all there in this playlist we both collaborated on. It was our own soundtrack, and it was the best thing to come out of that situation.

Playlist: Hard Feelings

Since 2020, it felt like every other person I knew was going through a break up or tumultuous time in their love life. I was included in that list, because 2020 was the year my relationship (and also engagement) fell apart. The 2 years that followed involved a lot of intense therapy, a cross-country move, and more change than I could have ever predicted. The one constant I had was music (as always) and curating playlists based on very specific feelings was a new hobby and welcomed distraction from the mental tornado I often found myself in.

This playlist was the start of those playlists - and this one started more general. I just knew everything was hard. I was thinking of Lorde’s entire Melodrama album (which is an A+ break up album) and wanted to build off her song titled ‘Hard Feelings.’ This playlist was spawned from that, to encompass the sadness and anger that comes packaged up with the rug that gets pulled from under you.