Faye Webster, an artist that somehow manages to get on most of the playlist I make no matter how much I try to change my music. I lay on my bed, window slightly open, salt lamp in the corner (because I hate the big light in my room) and I am usually reading The Perks of Being A Wallflower while playing low Faye tunes in the background. 

Faye has many songs from all her albums that consume you. Songs like “ Better Distractions” or “ But Not Kiss” sink into your mind. Hearing these songs as a teenager in the 21st century has really impacted my life. 

Changing mentally and physically all comes in highschool. Finding out who you are and what type of people you want to surround yourself with is part of a package deal high school teaches you about. Meeting people and conversations in general had never really been something I was good at which led me to having a pair of headphones at arms reach. 

Scrolling through countless artists and genres throughout the years I had discovered Faye Webster in the smallest crack of shuffled songs recommended by Apple Music. The song “But not Kiss” share lyrics like “I hope you’re okay, but I won’t ask If you’re in a good place / I won’t mess with that / But I’m here when you need, I always have” changed the perspective I had when I had a crush on a guy at the end of my sophomore year. 

Crushing on a person in high school is kind of scary. Long conversations about things you two have in common like that one 70s band, glancing at the person when they’re not looking in a group, and even creating a secret code name with your friends (for example “ pineapple” or even “kiwi”) are in songs Faye writes about. She writes the lines you feel on your back as you fade more into the haze of infatuation with this person. 

Faye touches her guitar to play the words we wish we could have said. She softly sings rhymes to people that could have also gone through what she has in her life.

 “ How am I supposed to ever be with him / When he and I don’t speak the same language?” is a sentence that captures everything I have ever wanted to say to the guy from my tenth grade year. 

As I like to stay inside and relax with a candle in my room, this guy would much more like to go out and be the life of the party. As I like to try new things in life, he would find comfort in his own cycles. While I am myself most in the winter having fun with dark-colored knitted sweaters, he enjoys the bright light of the sun on sandy towels at the beach. It was a Herculean task to keep him in one place and I knew that was not any part of who I am. 

Finding out who you are is something people are still trying to figure out even in their late 30s. What I am trying to say is that you never really stop developing no matter how much you think you are. To little crushes you swear you’re over with to finding your way through life are all in the lyrics of a song by Faye Webster. 

As I go on through the passages of my own life Faye Webster will trail along behind me as I find myself once again in another tricky situation. Realizing you deserve better and getting the closure you want is all you need to move onto the next song. 

Hiding your little quirky nothings and trying to fit into someone’s perspective of what they think they want is not the ideal love story they show in those high school movies. 

As I plug in an earphone debating what suits the mood, Faye Webster will somehow pop up in my ear again. Speaking what is on your heart isn’t for everyone and it doesn’t have to be. Most things are just left unsaid for the future to hold which might be a hard pill for some to swallow. 

While “Lego Ring” comes on I think about who I am as a person rather than letting my mind go free and wonder why it didn’t go the way I thought it would’ve or any derange thoughts about things like that. 

Faye Webster isn’t just a girl who sings about the “what’s ifs” in my life or the “maybe I should’ves.” She sings what she wants to and it holds a place in my life where I feel understood rather than being told I’m dramatic or that I have other things to be worried about. 

I will continue the rest of my high school years being a better version of what I was the last time. Only this time I will have a sense of nostalgia when hearing the lines of an artist I turned to in a now funny and awkward moment.