My Long Nights with Macklemore

One hour. When I was at my lowest mental health point in high school, I would listen to Macklemore for a minimum of one hour every single night. I don't think that they intended for "Neon Cathedral", "Otherside", and "Starting Over" to mean so much to a broken 16-year-old girl who didn't have a problem with alcohol or drugs, but it meant more to me than I ever could have expected. Alcohol and drugs weren't my demons, but I sure as hell had other ones. My demons were depression, anxiety, self-harm, disordered eating, guilt, and grief.

Pacing back and forth in my small bedroom with these songs blasting in my ears at the highest volume my earbuds/phone would allow was the main way that I would "relax" and feel some kind of peace at night. I'm not quite sure what it was about Macklemore and Ryan Lewis that drew me in, but their songs had a hold on me at that time more than any other music. Their music became my release and escape from the real world and my mental disorders; it would calm me down when I was having anxiety and prevent me from just laying in bed feeling empty when I had depressive episodes.

On the nights when I didn't listen to their music, all of my problems seemed to consume me and overwhelm me. I would spiral very quickly in those days so when I started to go downhill, I went fast. If I tried to just lay down to go to sleep without listening to their music first or while I tried to go to sleep, then I would often get panic attacks which led to me self-harming as a way of making it all stop.

I remember one night; I had been with people all day long and had forced myself to eat three meals so that no one would say anything or get suspicious (no one really knew about my eating disorders). Of course, my stomach was so not used to eating that much that I threw up in the middle of the night on my bedroom floor. I knew that due to the reason of why I threw up I didn't want to get my mom or anything like I usually would have if I was sick. So, my first instinct was to put on Macklemore while I cleaned it up. I cried while cleaning my floor because I did not want to be this way, but the music was so reassuring to me that it was going to be okay. Just because I had hit a low point in my life didn't mean I was going to stay there.

I'm sure that a lot of people know Macklemore for his party songs and not the deeper ones, but all of his songs have meaning to me. His music is what gave me hope when I was barely myself and I thank him for that. Music can be so powerful and that was the first time that I experienced how much an artist or song could mean to me. I hope that I am able to see Macklemore perform in person some day because hearing the songs that have meant so much to me in person would be such an amazing experience. It would feel like a dream.

I hope that everyone has the chance to experience the feelings that I experience when I hear Macklemore come on, whether I put it on or I hear it unintentionally. I know his songs from the first few seconds, and I instantly feel a change in my mood for the better. Two men I have never met were more helpful to me as a teenager than almost everyone in my life. I owe a lot of my recovery to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.

"A life lived for art is never a life wasted" - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Ten Thousand Hours