Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You

“you’d be a writer if he didn’t leave all his hell for you” if you were to ask me what i want to do when i grow up id tell you i want to pursue a career in medicine. or that i want to pursue a career in law. that i don’t mind how long i have to be in school for. if you were to ask me what i honestly want to be do i grow up i’d think of film school. i’d think of writing all day, id dream of making people feel something with my words. but i wouldn’t ever say this out loud. i wouldn’t disappoint my parents like that. growing up the child of immigrants there’s this immense weight on your shoulders before you’re even old enough to understand the pressure. success isn’t optional, this life you’re living isn’t yours. this is the life of everyone who got you here. you are living for your parents who left it all behind for you. everyone is waiting for you to prove that this journey was worth it.

so much i could say about this song, its completely tragic in every way. ethel has such a way of capturing the dread of realizing you’ve been hurting the person who loves you the most by simply being yourself. but to me the most gut wrenching part of the song has always been the final verse “still i waited and i tried till it killed me, ‘cause youre right i can wait if i want but itll never be good enough like i want to believe it is” it makes you think about why we wait so long for things, is it simply because it feels a bit better to hold onto the hope that what we want might one day happen, that what we want might one day complete our life. or is it simply because it we want to avoid the grief of completely losing what we want more than anything?