“Why can’t I catch my breath?
I’m gonna work myself to death
I don’t wanna fight no more”
Those lines in “Don’t Wanna Fight” by Alabama Shakes stuck with me. Personally, being in poverty and trying to navigate the system of finding jobs that will hire me or creating my own jobs and obtaining clients feels like a constant back and forth of pushing through, feeling hopeful, and then wanting to quit entirely. I remember a similar feeling when I was in college and high school trying to just make it to graduation. The lyric “I don’t wanna fight no more” taken away from the working context reminds me of wanting to die or having suicidal ideations when I had depression starting in middle school. Brittany Howard, the front woman of Alabama Shakes, sings to comfort your exhausted mind, body and soul, and gives you space to cry and release the heaviness from simply trying to exist in a society that constantly tells us it is too hard to just be.
