I have been a fan of Sabrina Carpenter since I started watching Girl Meets World, as a kid with a similar home life to her character, she was indispensable. When I learned she wrote music I was maybe 8 years old and she had just come out with "Eyes Wide Open" and "White Flag," both songs I have videos of me singing to at that age. I had always loved music and that was around the time I started learning guitar, my sister had gotten the same guitar featured in "Can't Blame a Girl for Trying" and I remember being so jealous because it was full-size and I was too small to play it. She inspired me to keep up with music, and I did, every week I would go to my grandpa's house and play guitar with him and learn to read music. When all the drama happened in 2020 and 2021, I had been a fan of hers for about 5 years and it was so sad to watch her get threatened online because of a relationship, I liked both of the girls and couldn't blame either of them for writing about their experience. "Skin" dropped at a time when I was incredibly vulnerable, it helped immensely when I was dealing with self-esteem issues and trying to convince myself the things other girls said at cheer didn't matter. Sabrina has always been someone I look up to, and I'm so grateful I've had a role model like her throughout the years. Some people get upset when their favorite artists get a big fanbase because they feel like they have more of a right to like them than anyone else, but I'm so thankful to see so many people supporting her, watching thousands of people loving her songs for different reasons is such an amazing thing. I think she deserves all the attention her work has gotten her.

( To preface I'm going to use my whole Sophmore year as a year instead of just 2024) If my sophomore year were a song from 1989, it would have to be Clean. When starting the year I had just quit cheerleading, and my Aunt Beckey who I saw as a mother figure just had her biological kid. I felt replaceable and wished I was invisible because instead I felt painfully visible and entirely ignored. My Aunt Beckey's husband would smoke around me knowing I struggled with post-traumatic stress after being forced around drugs as a kid to the point I developed chronic bronchitis, my Aunt Beckey would make any excuse she could for everything he did no matter what it was. When I was kicked out in October a few weeks before my birthday it felt like drowning, and after 2 years of being clean, I relapsed. "The water filled my lungs, I screamed so loud but no one heard a thing" I was moved to my Aunt Shelby's house over fall break. I felt guilty, isolated, and helpless. 2 years earlier I had run away from an abusive household, only for a year later to run straight back into the same situation in a different location. I wish I could say I saw, that with 3 previous houses that had the same structure I had recognized that it was unhealthy. The way I saw it, my eating disorder had gotten less severe, I had food if I wanted it, and I wasn't buying myself groceries with stashed Christmas money anymore. If I'm being honest I thought I was over it I hoped that since I ran away I had escaped abuse like Sisyphus eluding Thanatos. Making a total of 4 houses in 3 years I felt like a disappointment, I knew my situation wasn't my fault but I truly thought I had been safe, I even started calling my Aunt Beckey mom. "Hung my head as I lost the war, and the sky turned black like a perfect storm" It was one of the hardest things to accept that my aunt let her husband hurt me. Even when her husband screamed at us "It's her or me" I thought my aunt would choose me, even if she shouldn't have had to, but then she didn't. Just like in the song Clean, I felt like I was drowning, I felt like it was over like after all the therapy, all the research, all the work I had put in despite my circumstances I thought I would drown in that feeling, "When I was drowning that's when I could finally breathe." The thing is if I didn't get out of there I would have kept on believing that I wasn't worth fighting for, even after all the fighting I had done for myself I would have let myself accept the love I thought I deserved. I'm 9 months clean writing this, there are days I still miss it and the bridge of this song is what makes me feel so attached to it because it's true. It was awful and I'm so happy I'm better, but that won't stop me from missing that feeling, however misguided, that I could have had a mom. Recovery isn't a straight line, but music reminds me it's okay to feel enough especially Taylor's. This song specifically is so fitting because no matter how much I want to hold on to something it reminds me it's okay to let go. "Gone was any trace of you, I think I am finally clean" Thank you. -Emma