Lillian is my best friend. We have talked every day since we were 15 years old.
On paper, we seem like polar opposites. She goes to bed early; I stay up until sunrise. She is organized; I can’t find my keys after I just put them down. She is obsessed with French; I couldn’t make it past Spanish 3. Even in high school, our friends raised eyebrows when we decided to take a 10-day trip to Paris together. They struggled to see how such polar opposites could live together in a tiny, one-bedroom Parisian apartment.
The truth is, we aren’t really that different. We are academics at heart and love to hear each other geek out about papers for our niche classes. We have the same core values of love and friendship. We’ve seen each other at our best, winning and happy, and we’ve seen each other at our worst, whether heat waves and feelings of inadequacy. Throughout all of our similarities and differences, we have consistently turned to one another and to SZA’s debut album: “Ctrl.”
“Ctrl” is a masterful work that remains as relevant as it did to me the first time I heard it at 16 years old. From game nights with friends crying about the relevance of “The Weekend” to crying when I listened to “20 Something” in my 20s for the first time, the album does an extraordinary job of capturing the uncomfortable feelings of young adulthood. It is an album about trying to figure things out while not being tied down; understanding ourselves in relation to partners and friends, learning new things about ourselves. It reaches into the depth of my soul and teaches me new things about myself.
SZA is masterful in her articulation of the anguish that accompanies growth. “Need you for the old me, need you for my sanity” in “Garden” expresses the desire to regress and to be understood by the people we’ve known for years. Lillian understands me. Even as we grow in different cities — her in New York, me in Atlanta — she is someone I turn to daily to remind me who I am. The thing I admire the most about Lillian is her understanding of herself. She is unapologetically her own: a francophile, an aspiring biostatistician, an early riser, a knowledge seeker and simply hilarious.
Beyond our understanding of each other, we love to simply complain about tedious tasks. On an almost daily basis, Lillian and I rant about sending emails. It’s normal for each of us to text each other, “emails. that is all” after a slew of managing our inboxes. We remind each other of the support and difficulty of the mundane aspects of life. Nothing captures this mundanity better than in “Broken Clocks,” with the reminder to take it “day by day.” Even as we grow into ourselves, we still have to deal with the refusal to be vulnerable and the fear of sharing parts of ourselves that make us uncomfortable, scared and rejected. We push through. We’ve learned to be vulnerable with each other and the people around us.
“20 Something” broke me after my first breakup — only 19 but desperate to connect the anguish of my first heartbreak to something outside of myself. Lillian was there, reminding me to hate my ex and process the relationship fully. The song did the same. It reminded me of my youth, and all the love that is to come. My friends at Emory and I still listen to this song. In our senior year we are electrified and anxious regarding our futures. At times, the future is all we think about; other times, we resist listening, terrified of the unknown.
I’m sure Lillian and I’s love of “Ctrl” will remain throughout our 20 Somethings. It will last beyond our 20s, as will our love for each other. Next month, I’ll go visit her in New York for the first time. She’s going to take me around to her favorite places and I’ll get to live a weekend in her life. I can’t wait. I am thrilled to see the world she has created even as we are so far apart. I am so joyful to see her thriving, and I am forever thankful that she is part of my lifelong family.
Courtesy of Rachel Broun.
Rachel Broun (23C) is from Carrboro, North Carolina, majoring in anthropology and women's, gender and sexuality studies. She writes for the Editorial Board. Outside of the Wheel, Broun often finds herself doing crafts, working for Theater Emory and watching "The Real Housewives" series.
