songs on 'Guts' ranked by how relatable they feel to me, a lesbian who's turning thirty
because i'm procrastinating on my 4th step
So I opened my 4th step spreadsheet and put on Olivia Rodrigo’s new album to give it a listen while I worked on my inventory. But then “bad idea right?” started playing and I thought Wow ok, this feels relatable. And this was more fun to work on than a list of all of my resentments.
Some context is that she wrote this album when she was nineteen, “a year that was filled with lots of confusion, mistakes, awkwardness, and good old-fashioned teen angst.” Sounds kind of like the last year of my twenties. Anyway, stream Guts.
12) all-american bitch
I mean, “I’m sexy and I’m kind / I’m pretty when I cry” - girl, same. And “I’m grateful all the time (all the fucking time)” - see my nightly gratitude lists. Yes, I am a bitch, but this is the least relatable song for me overall. The pop-rock songs on this album are my faves musically though.
11) ballad of a homeschooled girl
“When I’m alone, I’m fine / but don’t let me out at night” - I feel that. I don’t know how to do parties now and I still haven’t figured out how to dance sober. Otherwise, I’m so glad I’m not a teenager anymore. And honestly I’m kind of glad I didn’t have her albums as a teen — I would not have been okay. Are the youth okay??
10) teenage dream
Let’s run away and don’t ever look back. “They all say that it gets better / it gets better the more you grow” - it does, girlypop! Hope this helps <3
9) logical
“Hear all the rumors lately / that you always denied” - yeah, that’s relevant. “I know I’m half responsible / and that makes me feel horrible” - oof! I don’t really blame myself for mistreatment by past partners and friends these days. That’s largely because I’ve done a lot of work to forgive myself and to accept the things I cannot change that while others may have done the best they could with what they had at the time, that doesn’t mean it was good enough. But if I’m honest with myself, in some of those situations there may have been a part I played by keeping the person as a partner or a friend for longer than I maybe should’ve. Some relevant advice: if this song (or others on the album) makes you think of a current partnership or friendship, consider whether you want to keep that person in your life!
8) pretty isn’t pretty
Some reasons I am grateful to be queer, and to be a lesbian specifically, are because of the expansiveness there is around gender expression in these identities, and because of the ways that queerness exists outside of and challenges cisheteropatriarchal norms. That said, as a woman — and as a femme woman in particular — I still feel affected by beauty marketing as well as some cultural expectations around what it means to be and to look like a woman. I’m a little embarrassed to admit I wasn’t a skincare girlie until earlier this year after I started getting skincare ads on Instagram, and I think my skin is only slightly better looking now that I put a handful of products on my face every morning and night. Also, some part of me feels like every new tinted glossy lip balm that I hear about will be the one that would get a hot girl to hit on me in the seltzer aisle at the co-op. “When pretty isn’t pretty enough / what do you do?” You try a new liquid blush or add a retinol serum into your skincare routine, I guess, idk.
7) get him back
I am, famously, friends with most of my exes. I know why things ended with all of them, and I think it’s for the best that we’re just friends now. And I’m lucky to have them as friends! Have I wanted to get her back or get them back after the breakup though? Yeah, obviously! I’ve dated some wonderful people over the past couple years. As for revenge fantasies, that isn’t me — usually anyway. Don’t try me! I can hold a grudge for so long! (See “the grudge” below.) It’s really something to see a girl so in touch with her anger. An inspiration to us all. And what a fun chorus!
6) love is embarrassing
Love is embarrassing! “I give up, give up, but I keep coming back for more” - when I told my hot neighbor recently that I was actually not going to date new people for a while, she called me out by telling me that I’ve been saying that since we became friends a year and a half ago. “You said space is what you need” - I have heard this too! many! times! from people I’ve dated with avoidant attachment tendencies. Ugh! The love I don’t feel embarrassed by is love I have for my friends. Hi y’all, ily <3 Who would I be without you, without them? You should cancel tonight’s plans with your situationship that you’ve caught feelings for and text your bestie to see if they’re around instead. Nurture that friendship because they’re the one who will probably still be in your life next week.
5) lacy
This song is ranked higher simply because it’s gay. Thematically it’s not very relatable to me, but the femme4femme energy is. I don’t have much else to say about this one actually, except I’m wondering if she was already out as queer. This song is gay, right? It’s not just homoerotic envy or something? I’m taking it as a good sign if I’m missing context and this is actually about some Gen Z celeb drama and not about a crush she feels screwed over by. If it’s not gay, I don’t want to know, thanks. It might be a little homophobic of me to say this then: this is the only song on the album that’s a skip for me. Sorry!
4) the grudge
I’m a girl who can and will hold a grudge. Does it help me in any way to do so? Nope! There’s that expression people love to say in AA meetings: resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to get hurt. But it feels good to stew, to talk a little shit about someone who’s hurt you, and to feel some schadenfreude about them every now and then. How bad can that really be for you? “The arguments that I’ve won against you in my head” - I win them all! “I fantasize about a time when you’re a little fucking sorry” - it’s hard to move on when you’re owed apologies, and when you know the person isn’t someone who will give them to you, that’s some serious fuel for a grudge. Re the procrastination on my 4th step, part of making a searching and fearless moral inventory is considering which resentments you can move on from, what grudges you can let go of, and who you can forgive. “It takes strength to forgive but I don’t feel strong” - I’m so familiar with this sentiment and I’m confronting it again now. I’m hoping I can find a bit of strength for some of what I’m holding onto.
3) vampire
When I’m going to listen to Olivia Rodrigo, it’s because I want to feel something. “drivers license” to be in my sad breakup feels. “good 4 u” to shout about feeling bitter towards an ex along with a girl ten years younger than me. It’s because I want to play her angsty, confessional music while in the car and arrive at my destination with an emotional hangover, hoping I’ll run into one of the several people whom I shouldn’t want to run into. “vampire” isn’t really a song that resonates for me lyrically, but I feel it, you know? “I’ve made some real big mistakes / but you make the worst one look fine” - how cathartic (and melodramatic) it would be to tell someone off like that! “The way you sold me for parts / as you sunk your teeth into me” - is it just me or do you feel bite marks too? It’s the feeling behind this song and many of her others that makes me relate to them. And it’s the emotion (the E•MO•TION) in women’s pop music that has me playing songs on repeat.
2) bad idea right?
I don’t know if I’m at liberty to discuss something that… happened recently with an ex. But this song, as I mentioned, feels very relatable. Unlike Miss Rodrigo, I haven’t lied to my friends about it — in fact, talking about it caused more issues than if I maybe had lied. What happened wasn’t a bad idea, but I’m still ~processing~ around whether it was a good one. This song also makes me think back to my most recent breakup with a different ex this past spring. In our conversation that ended up turning into a breakup, she proposed going back to just casually hooking up again instead of continuing to date. I didn’t think I could emotionally handle that then, but after a month of space I felt like I was ready so I followed up. Most of my friends thought it wouldn’t be great if I “tripped and fell into [her] bed” again after things ended, since we had both already moved on some. I wanted to ignore their advice. “Yes, I know that he’s my ex / but can’t two people reconnect?” This song captures the feeling of when what you want and what you should actually do are in conflict, and when what you want and what your friends want for you aren’t the same thing. “I should probably, probably not” - the nice thing about being self-aware is that you can still pat yourself on the back for knowing what’s best for you, even if you do the opposite.
1) making the bed
The ballads on this album really hit home for me apparently. It is me who’s been makin’ the bed! Some recent situations with friends have left me sitting with this feeling lately — the fact that I may have played a part in where things have ended up. The other side of that coin though is that I can try to make choices that don’t make these situations worse, for me or for them. And I am trying. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t wanna be where I am” - ugh, yes. I miss some parts of how my life used to be and I still wish plenty of things were different now, despite all the goodness. “I got the things I wanted, it’s just not what I imagined” - there’s a bittersweetness to gratitude sometimes, when you have what you hoped for but not the feeling you thought would come with having it. Another 4th step thought: a significant part of the 4th step is reflecting on and admitting how we’ve contributed to the resentments we’re holding onto. It’s not the case for every resentment, but I know I made the bed for a number of them. “Pull the sheets over my head” - have you done that lately? It gets stuffy but it feels good to hide from your problems every so often. Especially when they’re of your own making.
Alright, now back to my spreadsheet. Listening to this album made me think of a few more resentments to add.