26 in 26 songs + 27 Things I Would Say To My Younger Self

Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash

The best purchase I made in 2023 was probably my beige wireless headphones which I decorated with stickers to personalise it. These headphones have made the experience of listening to music that much more special. I feel like the main character in a movie at the cafe where I’m working on drafts on my laptop, at the gym where I’m running on the treadmill, or at home where I’m doing laundry. Whenever I feel lost and need to ground myself back into the soils of life, I put on my headphones and press play on my 26th birthday playlist. This playlist is sacred to me; I created and updated it to have 26 songs to commemorate the motions of my 26th lap around the sun. I knew the exact song that the playlist should start with and of course it was a Lorde song:

Track 1: Still Sane — Lorde, “Today is my birthday and I’m riding high / Hair is dripping, hiding that I’m terrified”. I imagine Lorde’s song ‘Still Sane’ from her iconic debut album ‘Pure Heroine’ playing as I blow out the one candle that represented 26 years on my birthday cake. I turned 26 then, but emotionally I felt like I was still 16. When I was 16, I religiously listened to Pure Heroine on a loop whilst I prepped for my IGSCE exams, digging into the lyrics like it was pieces of cake. It’s my birthday, my hair is covered by the hood of my jacket that acted as a lazy girl hijab, hiding the fact that I’m scared. On my 26th birthday, I wrote about how I wanted to be fearless but was actually scared of growing older. I’m sorry to disappoint you, dear reader, but yes, I sometimes lie to myself and the people around me, hoping to one day believe in those beautiful lies. Some days, I believed that I did feel excited to grow older and even looked forward to it, and other days I couldn’t believe that I’ve been alive for this long. How did I get here?

Track 3: What Was I Made For? — Billie Eilish, “Think I forgot how to be happy / Something I’m not, but something I can be / Something I wait for/ Something I’m made for”. When this song was released, I knew it had to be featured in my playlist. I gave Barbie (2023) 5-stars on Letterboxd; I’m quite generous with my stars on the orange green blue dot app, nonetheless the way Greta Gerwig used this song in the movie was perfect. Growing older as a girl is fascinating, one minute we’re happy playing with our Barbie dolls, then the next minute we’re big girls with bills to pay. When I was younger, I used to think that being happy was conditional, and for that to happen I had to have a certain lifestyle and tick certain checkboxes so that I could eventually be happy. I was wrong. Happiness can be found from within, and it can be buried in the smallest of things, like inside a cup of warm tea or the sunbeams that touch my skin in the day. The older I grow, the more I realise that I don’t want a shinier and prettier life that someone else has, because the life I already have is good enough for me and it’s also the one that was written and tailored specifically for me by my Creator.

Track 9: King — Florence + The Machine, “I need my golden crown of sorrow, my bloody sword to swing / My empty halls to echo with grand self-mythology / I am no mother, I am no bride, I am king”. As I’m going through my playlist, there’s an emotional build-up that goes from feeling scared to feeling like a fucking baddie. When this Florence + The Machine songs comes on, I feel like there’s a crown on my head and I’m ready to take on the world. There’s this one part of the song right before things start to cool down where Florence is just belting notes out, it sounds like she’s screaming and I fucking love it. I want to go somewhere spacious and quiet and scream with her. I hate the word “empower,” but this song makes me feel empowered.

Track 12: Far — SZA, “Lately, I feel less cool as before / (Nobody under my garter belt) / (Nobody out here to tell me I’m special)”. I listened to SZA’s album SOS a lot in 2023, to the point that SZA was my Spotify wrapped top artist. We all love ‘Snooze’, ‘Kill Bill’, ‘I Hate U’, ‘Shirt’, those are all great songs but this song is a little underrated in my opinion. ‘Far’ references back to ‘Special’, a song in which SZA expresses the crave to be special to someone, but then in ‘Far’ she sings about how actually she doesn’t need anyone to make her feel special, and this bold statement frees her, and frees me too. I used to, and still to a certain degree, let rejections drag me down. I hated getting rejected, and I feel myself crumbling at the thought of all those rejections piled up one on top of the other. I faced so many rejections, and at the time I thought it was impossible for me to pick myself up from it, but in the end I did. And Alhamdullilah I did, because now I feel free to belong to myself and to my Creator.

Track 19: First Love / Late Spring — Mitski, “And I was so young when I behaved twenty-five / Yet now, I find I’ve grown into a tall child”. Mitski’s third studio album ‘Bury Me at Makeout Creek’ is one of those albums that’s on the list of albums to get to know me. I think the reason I love this album so much is that I discovered it at the right phase of my life, in my early to mid twenties, and so it spoke to me at my core. It speaks to me to this day, because I continue to still feel like a tall child. I don’t know what to do with all these feelings, all these evolutions I’ve made from year to year, I feel like should know more but I think I know nothing. And maybe that’s okay? I don’t know.

Track 22: Letter To My 13 Year Old Self — Laufey, “Keep on going with your silly dream / Life is prettier than it may seem”. 2023 was the year I discovered Laufey and I’m in awe of her discography. I knew I had to include at least one Laufey song in my playlist, and I chose this beautiful song from her second album ‘Bewitched’. The very first time I heard this song, I could feel my heart aching. I couldn’t help but imagine my thirteen year old self. I can see her feeling frustrated and confused at what to do with all the pent up rage she’s been holding on to for so long, she’s sad and lacks the awareness that I’ve taken years to develop and grow from, and she’s alone. Just like Laufey, I wish I could go back in time and give my thirteen year old self a squeeze and tell her that she’s going to be fine.

Today is my birthday. I turn 27, and before I start creating my 27th birthday playlist, I want to list 27 things I would say to my 13 year old self whilst I listen to my 26th birthday playlist.

1. You’re so loved.
2. You’re so loved.
3. You’re so loved.
4. You’ll be in a better place than where you’re at now, physically and emotionally.
5. You’ll get through it, at the end of the day you’ll get through it and you might even cry and complain in the process but you’re going to get through those rough patches either way.
6. Your parents are flawed people just like you.
7. You’re going to outgrow some things and even some people, but that’s okay.
8. Everything, even the act of waking up in the morning, can feel like it’s hard which is why you should celebrate every win, even and especially the small ones.
9. Your body will change, your metabolism will slow down, and that’s normal. Whichever phase you find your body in, learn to appreciate it for the work that it does to keep you alive.
10. Self-care doesn’t have to be indulgent, it can be radical too, because when you learn the value of self-love, not only do you benefit from it but so does your community.
11. Be careful of getting used to the things in your life that seem like it’s mundane. Allah can take just as He can give, so be grateful for everything in your life, including the mundane.
12. Look closer, and I mean really close, at what Allah has given you. You’ll notice the sparks that you couldn’t see before you looked closer.
13. You’re not alone.
14. You’re not alone.
15. You’re not alone.
16. For the love of God, wash your face properly before you go to bed, start with an oil cleanser and cleanse for one whole minute, then wash it all off with a water-based cleanser!
17. Your parents are proud of you, more than you know, they’re your number one supporters.
18. Stretch, stretch, stretch! Incorporate yoga as part of your evening routine.
19. Don’t be afraid of love.
20. Don’t be afraid of being seen.
21. You’re afraid because you care, and all you gotta do is lead with that care.
22. I’m here for you.
23. The people who you love and care for you are here for you.
24. Don’t worry about the things you can’t control in the future, let me handle it and you can go live our little life at this tender age. I got you.
25. I love you.
26. I love you.
27. I will always love you.

I already know the cover art for my 27th birthday playlist, and of course it’s going to be that scene from Pride & Prejudice (2005) when Charlotte tells Elizabeth that she’s 27 with no money, no prospects, she’s already a burden to her parents and she’s frightened. I’m ready to curate a new playlist for my next lap around the sun, and ready to press play on 27. Bismillah, here we go!