“Over” or “Born to Die”?
As I’m sitting at my little desk at my minimum-wage job, my AirPods fill with the ascending chords of what I think is the Midtown-favorite Drake song, “Over.” Preparing myself to get pumped up by listening to how many people Drake knows that are here right now, I am instead hit with the melodic voice of Lana Del Rey asking “Why?” My mood changes, and suddenly I’m feeling introspective and sensitive.
Whenever I hear the beginning of “Over” by Drake or “Born to Die” by Lana Del Rey, I must decide, in a split second, which one it will be. Typically, this decision reveals how I am feeling for the day. My sappy, romantic side is exposed as I long for the wispy notes of Lana’s voice. My heartless, get-shit-done personality that reveals itself once every blue moon is awakened as I prepare to scream out some “Loverboy.” In those few seconds before the masked singer unveiled, I am both, and I am neither. I have the beautiful option to be anyone.
But isn’t this every day? Every morning, before my mind fills with the mundane tasks of the day, I have a few seconds of nothingness. A few seconds to decide who you want to be. Maybe today is the day I go to the career fair. Or wear ballet flats with socks because I saw a French girl do it. I could even wake up and unenroll from school — I could do anything. The amount of agency we hold as college students is the most frighteningly freeing thing we could ever ask for.
When we were little, even when we didn’t know what the day would bring, we knew we wouldn’t be the ones making those decisions. What we had for breakfast was an adult problem. Those stubborn-ass knots would be out of our hair before school, but we didn’t need to worry about brushing them out ourselves. We had the responsibility of choosing a game at recess, of which snack we ate first. We were given our tasks and our lives were laid out for us, our personalities forming within the constraints we were given.
Photo from Pinterest
But now — what the fuck are we supposed to do now? I came home with a lemon bundt cake and ate it with a spoon last night. This little mind, the one that has convinced me so many times that I’ll never be anyone, is meant to find self-assurance in this big world?
When we opened our acceptance letters to UF, we were not only given a spot here — we were given anonymity. Besides a few kids from your hometown, no one knows you. No one knows that you don’t regularly wear hats or that you did drama in high school. No one even knows that you still do drama now. We can continuously reinvent ourselves every single day, and the most sickening, sweet part of it all is everyone else is just as egocentric and unsure of themselves.They could give two shits that you cut curtain bangs. They aren’t worried that you have no idea what the next two years of your life will look like because they haven’t discovered a secret that makes any of it easier, either.
Photo from Pinterest
So, Drake and Lana, my alter egos and my tickets to self-expression. This little mixup between their intros has granted me yet another way to dramatically reflect on my life. It’s okay to be unsure of which song it is this time, and it’s okay to be unsure of who you will be today. Maybe I need to shake ass at Lil Rudy’s tonight in my not-sponsored Edikted set and maybe I need to lay in the Plaza of the Americas the next morning, speechlessly reflecting as I sip on my Opus matcha and pretend I’m in an indie film. I don’t have to choose one or the other — we are allowed to exist in those few seconds before the decision is made. Maybe it’s a Drake day; maybe it’s a Lana day. Or maybe it’s a Soundcloud-mash-up-of-the-two day. Either way, the day is ours to take.
Strike out,
Writer: Olivia Evans
Editor: Olivia Hansen
Graphic: Anabel Dent
Gainesville
