Adele’s 30: Lessons for a 19 year old
A text I had sent a friend a while ago. Adele just has that effect.
This morning I sent Adele’s 30 to my mom. With music tastes and life experiences of very different spectrums, it's not often that we’d share appreciation for the same album, but Adele just has that effect. Her immense talent and the heavenly sounding instrumentals and heart-rending, gut-wrenching lyrics of her songs touch young people and their parents — and their parents’ parents. And it makes sense: from singing about former lovers and experiencing heartbreak as a young girl in her debut album 19 and then 21 to singing about finding herself again after motherhood in 25, Adele sings of things we all relate to or are bound to as we grow up.
The British singer is a worldwide music sensation and yet, 30 marks only her fourth studio album. The hiatus after each release has made it harder to notice that she has literally grown in front of our eyes — and even harder to realize that so have we. I was an 8 year old with a bare understanding of life or love singing my heart out to Someone Like You because of a middle school crush; today, I am almost the same age as the album’s title (and the same bare understanding of life or love), singing my heart out to 30. But this time it feels different. I didn’t cry.
The cover of Adele’s fourth studio album “30”
With Strangers By Nature, a track of a style resembling that of Judy Garland, Adele kicks off not only her fourth studio album but also a journey of self reflection not seen in her albums before. “Taking flowers to the cemetery of her heart”, she seemingly sets up a theme of embracing rather than lamenting or trying to forget all that has caused her heart to break. I wonder how many of us still need to learn to do the same. In Easy on Me, she addresses her son, explaining that her actions have been a product of all she’s gone through and asking for forgiveness for leaving his father. Is she also asking us to go easy on her? Is she asking herself to do the same? We all make mistakes — do we think about the fact we were just trying to do the best we can with who we were at the moment? Perhaps the saddest song on the album, My Little Love sews together pieces of voice notes between the singer and her little boy, revealing a vulnerable and ever-hurting Adele. Though a mother and 30, an age when people are expected to have everything figured out, she sings about being as lost as ever. Society, take notes. You can be 30 and not have it all figured out. You can be 100 and not have it all figured out! Adele then explores the themes of depression and being lost in surprisingly cheery following few tracks with the conclusion that one could get through it and find new experiences. Despite the heartbreak that comes from divorce, Adele has to “hold on”. And the last song on the album (that I have frankly been listening to on repeat, it gives off such an ending-of-a-coming-of-age-movie feeling), sings of a new beginning: “I'll do it all again like I did then”. We make mistakes. We hurt others, others hurt us, we hurt ourselves. We are anxious, we are lost. But we learn and we grow. New experiences come along. Divorce is not the end of love, and sorrow is not the end of happiness.
“Sometimes loneliness is the only rest we get.”
When asked about what the album is about in an Instagram live back in October, Adele replied, “Divorce, babe, divorce”. But it’s about much more than that. It’s about heartbreak, loss, and being lost, themes the singer has often explored in the past, except this time, it’s about feeling them out, accepting them as part of who she is, and learning to keep going. Though as lost as ever, Adele has grown up since 19. The focus is no longer on those who have broken her heart. It’s on herself and her own growth and healing. Out of heartbreak she has found self-love. And that’s one beautiful lesson for all of us small humans trying to navigate big feelings. If you haven’t given 30 a listen, go do it. I hope it inspires you to hold on and let pain be gracious.