Avicii Forever.

Can you actually miss someone you’ve never met? I think about Avicii a lot. When I went to the Avicii Experience, I spent almost 2 hours there. I wanted to see all the videos and be at the exhibit thoroughly. Truth to be told, the only reason why I went to Stockholm was because I wanted to see the Avicii Experience. Maybe that’s when the seed was planted about going to Stockholm. When I got to Stockholm, it felt like the perfect place to listen to Avicii, given that this is the city that shaped him. Somewhere in Stockholm is that song, a tribute to where he grew up.

I think the reason why Avicii’s death still hurts is because his music was truly the soundtrack of my uni days to young adulthood. So when he passed, it like it was the death of a certain period of time in my life. I struggled a lot in 2015, working as a first year graduate physiotherapist. I hated the job because I hated the physio department I worked in. I swear they were bullies. I really wanted to quit but I persisted and finished my contract. I figured that I will just get that year of experience under my belt and explore other things if I wanted to. I remember feeling the sunday scaries every week, cause I just didn’t want to go to work and face the people there. I loved the patients, I loved the wards, but I hated working with the physios. I also didn’t like the drive down there, because it was like 50kms away from home, and I was a young 22 year old. So a bit green. I discovered The Nights by Avicii and it gave me perspective. And I felt like that my life isn’t just this and that there is possibility and hope to really live a beautiful life after this. I played this song on repeat as I drove down the highway to and from work, it kept me going when I just wanted to quit. It was me and Avicii on repeat. So he really got me through that year.

And I don’t think it’s just that he was the soundtrack to my life in my 20s. It was really because he truly was a musical genius. His flair for melody was unsurpassed and he kept innovating and bringing new ideas to music. I remember hearing wake me up for the first time and I was so taken aback, kinda confused, It wasn’t love at first listen at all, but obviously, it’s now one of my favourite songs that still stops me on my tracks. I miss Avicii because I love his music and I just love how he poured his heart and soul into his music. You can feel the melancholy hopefulness in his music. It’s like he just wove his soul into the melodies and you can hear it. His music makes you feel - in the sense that you just wanna close your eyes and feel into it.

But maybe he was really in so much pain and he couldn’t go on any longer. I really hope Avicii has found the peace that he was looking for. The world misses him so much. I miss him so much.