Erica Recommends: “This Year” by The Mountain Goats

Life tends to have days where you get that sinking feeling of not being able to go on. People I know tend to either give themselves time to give into the feeling or somehow be able to draw on some limitless spring of optimism.

Me? I put “This Year” by The Mountain Goats on repeat.

When times are bad, my way of embracing it is giving myself a moment to get the bad stuff out of my system. I complain or feel bad for myself for a moment, then I get up and get going. This song is the perfect soundtrack to this. The refrain of “I am going to make it through this year if it kills me,” is uplifting to me. Belting it out is freeing, acknowledging how difficult a climb it’s going to be, but knowing that you will try anyway.

It is also in a time like this that I turn to this song for comfort. Between all the lockdowns, quarantines, financial worries and all the other things to feel down about, we still have to live. Life has to go on in some form or another.

I choose to be hopeful, even though the days feel like they can stretch on forever. We will make it. We will get through this. Together.

I love this song. Stephen Colbert does too. I hope you’ll find joy listening to it too.

“My broken house behind me, only good things ahead.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eetIgGXH6DA&feature=emb_title(Song recommendation by Erica Yong)