Walking in circles around my childhood neighborhood, softly singing each word to “On My Own” from the Teen Beach 2 soundtrack, I didn’t let myself go home until I got every word right.

I was ten when Teen Beach 2 was released. I had a love-hate relationship with it as I absolutely loathed how they closed the story, but there was one song that made the movie a staple in my life.

When the main character, Brady, played by Ross Lynch, is going through a rough patch with his girlfriend Mack, played by Maia Mitchell, he sings this song about life without her. As a ten-year-old, I obviously felt very connected to this song.

Yet, here I am eight years later, still listening to the catchy tune, though I still cannot relate, at least not to the surface meaning of the song.

I now find myself applying these lyrics to my future, as my last childhood summer is approaching and it does feel like all my big plans are blowing away in the breeze.

Though I’m not leaving a serious relationship or moving away from a beach I have surfed at my whole life, the future is approaching rapidly and I will soon be on my own.

I was five when the song “I’ll Always Remember You” started playing in a Hannah Montana episode. I was a little teary-eyed as Miley said goodbye to her alter ego. 

I now see that song as a song that makes the air in my lungs leave my body when I think about graduating in a month and will truly relate to leaving all my memories behind.

As Hannah sings “I always knew this day would come, we’d be standing one by one with our futures in our hands” on my car radio on the way to my high school graduation, I know the tears will ruin my mascara and I’ll choke on the lyrics as I close yet another chapter.

In my freshman year, my friends and I fell in love with the song “History” by One Direction. It symbolized the band separating from one of its members, and reflecting on the good times. Now, three years later, that song has a more personal meaning, and at the time I’m writing this, I have 34 days left of the entire life I have lived thus far. 

Three songs, discovered years apart, all sit in one playlist symbolizing the ending of the most crucial era of my life so far. I’ve spent the past four years hoping it would end sooner, looking forward to the big events, and as it approaches, I loathe my past self for wishing it here so soon.

The places, the people, and the music that has shaped the past eighteen years now are fighting the anxieties of my future, attempting to grab me and pull me into the past so I won’t focus on what will happen after May 17.

I truly will be “On My Own” in a few months, telling my friends “I’ll Always Remember You” as I pack up my childhood room, and someday reminiscing on the “History” this era of my life is becoming as it uncontrollably and finally closes.