This is Holocene by Bon Iver.
It was written by the band’s frontman, Justin Vernon, and it is one of their most popular
songs.
I’ve probably heard it over a thousand times by now.
It’s a great track.
It’s not my favorite by Bon Iver, or at least it wasn’t.
To be honest, I don’t really know anymore.
What I do know though is that last summer this song changed for me.
For nearly 8 years, it was just the chill 3rd track on an album I enjoyed, but last
summer it started to mean something.
What’s weird is I could see it’s new meaning form right in front of me; I didn’t even
need hindsight to know that something had shifted.
In a matter of minutes it went from being just a song to being a memento of a very strange
time in my life.
I should give some context first.
Last summer was a bit of a struggle for me.
My wife and I were preparing to move from Minneapolis to Milwaukee, which was bittersweet
as it meant leaving a lot of people we love and a city we adore to finally make it back
to the place we grew up knowing as home after being away for nearly a decade.
I had no idea what I wanted to do professionally, but I was pretty sure that the career I had
spent the previous 4 years pursuing would just lead to me being miserable.
Also, despite some traction on YouTube a few months prior, the channel had hit a bit of
a lull, and it really felt like any hope of that dream becoming a reality was fading into
nothingness.
On top of all of that, I broke my elbow in the most embarrassing way I can imagine.
Losing my balance while roller skating The worst part is that I was standing still at
the time.
I wanted to enjoy my last few months in Minneapolis but between worrying about what was next and
being severely limited in what I could do because of my arm, I felt like I was missing
time I couldn’t afford to miss.
I was annoyed and sad and angry and scared.
I think a lot of us have expectations for where we will be at certain points of our
lives.
Sometimes those expectations stem from goals we set for ourselves, but a lot of times they
are based around when other people accomplished those things.
It’s arbitrary, but it is a hard pressure not to feel.
A year earlier, I thought I had those things figured out.
I had answers to the typical questions asked by real adults, and while I certainly felt
like an imposter, on paper at least, I thought I had achieved the things I was supposed to
have achieved by that point.
So, to be completely lost just one year later, with a shattered elbow to boot, felt humiliating.
I wanted so badly to feel that sense of being on track again, but I didn’t really know
what I could do to get there.
Living in the moment seemed impossible because I had this unshakeable sense that I needed
to catch up.
That I needed to know what was next.
As is common for me, I was in my head, and struggled with breaking out of that loop.
Around the time I broke my arm, a friend asked if I’d be interested in driving to Milwaukee
to see Bon Iver at Summerfest—I am going to assume any of you who live outside the
Midwest are unfamiliar with Summerfest, but it is the world’s largest music festival,
so, ya know, learn it.
I said yes and a group of us headed to Milwaukee.
The trip reminded me of the ones my friends I used to take in college.
The ones where we were free from any real responsibility and able to just be.
We walked the city making up our plans as we went along, we talked passionately about
things that didn’t really matter like how disappointing we found the ending of Game
of Thrones—or at least I did, and we lived in the moments we were in instead of being
concerned about what next week, next month or next year would bring.
It was a weekend filled with those small little moments of tremendous importance that we almost
always take for granted.
Moments that are so easy to look past.
The one that has stuck with me the most and is really why I’m saying any of this happened
at the actual show.
During the set Justin Vernon asked everyone in the audience if they felt safe.
And despite it just being some simple crowdwork, in that moment I realized that I hadn’t
felt safe in months.
With the move, with the uncertainty, with the broken arm, I felt like I was on the edge
of disaster all the time.
I felt like at any moment, I could collapse into ruin.
And I don’t really know why, but when they started playing Holocene, that tight coil
of fear, frustration, sadness and anger loosened.
Something in me unwound, and it felt like I had finally let out a breath after months
of holding it in.
As I listened to it then, with the warm breeze of a perfect summer night easing across my
back, with the sound of thousands of strangers singing the same words I was, and with the
friends I would soon leave in the city I’d be leaving to, it went from being just a song
to being a memory.
A memory of that night, a memory of that weekend, a memory of a time where I felt so uncertain,
but found some peace regardless.
It didn’t matter that night that so much in my life was uncertain.
I just enjoyed it.
I understand that it shouldn’t be this hard to accept that it is okay to step back and
enjoy the present, even when everything feels so messy, but it is, and sometimes I need
a reminder.
Obviously, hearing Holocene that one time didn’t solve all my worries.
The reality is nothing will.
Learning to live with anxiety is something I rediscover on a near constant basis because
the more times I do, the more tools I have.
And now this song is one of those tools.
It reminds me of a time where I felt safe, and when I hear it now, something in me unwinds,
even if only for a moment.