to Prince, from the bottom of my (broken) heart 🤍
7 years ago, my heart shattered into a thousand pieces. there isn’t a glue in the world strong enough to put it back together and heal this never-ending heartache.
there’s no one I’ve ever loved more than you and I don’t think I ever will love anyone more than I love you.
today, I would like to take you on a trip down memory lane to some of the happiest years of my entire life.
it was sometime in the winter of 2013 when I turned sixteen years old. slowly transitioning into adulthood, being in the final years of adolescence (depending on what ages you view adolescence to occur between – some grow older quicker than others do)
I think adolescence is a highly formative time in which we develop more emotional awareness, different interests or the expanding of learning about interests we previously had but are now much more curious about, self-discovery and taking on new roles in the preparation of becoming an adult.
from when I was a young child, I wanted nothing more than to write songs and become a singer. creativity is in my blood and no matter how hard I’ve tried to suppress this and live what’s considered a “normal” life, there’s always been a hunger that needed to be satisfied. so naturally, I gravitated towards learning about music.
every different genre, sub-genre, finding out who were the truly great artists among us and growing up with their music. understanding them and their words more the older I got, living through different experiences myself. it seemed like for everything I ever went through, whether joyful or causing me pain – there was a song there, someone else’s words that perfectly described the way I felt. for that I’ve always been truly grateful – music to me is the purest form of art.
this is still something I’d like to do with my life. but because I associate music so closely with Prince and he was responsible for a big part of my musical upbringing, this has become much more difficult for me. fully indulging myself in the creative process always comes with a wave of sadness – as Prince, to me, is music. there is no possible way in which I could separate the two.
now, let’s get back to that winter in 2013, my sixteenth birthday, which was only a few months after someone I had always admired released brand new material. this song, to me, marked the start of a brand new era: “Rock & Roll Love Affair” – we were even given a music video to accompany the track.
it had this nostalgic feel to it like only he could do but with that refreshing “newness” in a way only he could bring. I was absolutely over the moon to learn someone I had admired for my entire life was releasing new music again and this was only the start of it.
he had a brand new, immensely talented, all-girl band who went by the name of 3RDEYEGIRL and it seemed like he was getting ready to gear up to tour the world. meanwhile I was in what should’ve been one of my final years of high school but due to personal circumstances I ended up adding another two years onto that journey.
even though I was to stay in school for a little while longer than I would’ve liked to, I now had something else to focus on entirely besides the trauma that parental divorce brings with it. this was a very turbulent time in my life and I’ll be eternally grateful that Prince gave me that escape I was so desperately longing for.
fast forward to the summer of that same year, 2013, out of nowhere a Twitter account with the same name as Prince’s band, 3RDEYEGIRL, popped up and sent out its’ first tweets. much to our surprise (I’m aware of the countless of arguments there are whether this was actually him tweeting or not – I’d like to believe it was) the tweets actually came from him.
the same person who declared the internet as being “dead” (there’s a lot more substance to this and if you actually read into what parts of the internet he’s referring to – he makes a truly valid argument there) only a few years prior to this had now began to embrace some of the social media networks. and we were HERE for it.
summer has always been exciting as the weather starts getting warmer, we trade our winter coats for summer clothes and the serotonin from the sun changes our mood and perspective. add Prince opening up “his world” to us in a way that we haven’t seen him do before to that mix and suddenly you get one of the best summers ever.
or at least to me it was. a young me couldn’t quite believe I was alive during a time where someone who means so much to the music industry and the world itself would be interacting with so many of his devoted purple family on a relatively new social media platform.
I stayed up every night (and abandoned any chance I had at a “normal” sleeping schedule) to wait for his tweeting sprees, sending tweets his way, waiting for another 3RdEyeTV livestream directly from the park or begging him to release the full version of a snippet of a song he just dropped on SoundCloud.
one thing is for sure – the man knew how talented he was and how open we were to receiving more and more. we couldn’t get enough of him and his work.
even though he took some breaks here and there (remember when he launched his Princestagram, went on a hiatus and then launched it again later on?) this went on for a few years up until a few days before he passed away.
for me, life has never been more exciting than those few years. filled with anticipation, wondering when Prince would drop another song or album or if he would announce another tour or Paisley Park After Dark event on short notice. I always wanted to go to these events so badly, but the truth is that I was way too young to have traveled all the way to the United States by myself. what I would give to have been able to go to his Paisley Park just once while he was still here with us..
now, I’m in my mid-20s but I feel like I’m forever stuck at sixteen. I miss him so much it’s hard to breathe sometimes. losing him is a void I just can’t seem to fill. the one person who helped me through an extremely tough time and gave me back my lust for life and the drive to keep going, without him even knowing – to make my life worthwhile – is now no longer here with us in his physical form. the trend of what my life has been like so far seems to always be wrong place, wrong time.
nothing I can ever say or do will bring you back to me, to us.. on that rainy day in April, the world permanently changed. your presence on Earth made the world just that much brighter and it hasn’t been the same since.
there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t wonder what things would’ve been like if you were still here.
you gave us so much of you and your unmatched level of artistry and musicianship. you truly were one of a kind and that energy will forever be present throughout the universe.
I always knew we wouldn’t have you forever, as tomorrow is never promised and life is so beautiful yet incredibly fragile at the same time. you lived what seemed like a million lifetimes in one during your years with us here on earth. constantly reinventing yourself as an artist and putting your all into your craft.
I can only hope you knew just how loved you were. if only I would’ve had the opportunity to tell you that to your beautiful face.. you know, just to say thank you. for everything.
thank you for giving me the happiest years of my life, thank you for introducing me to so many likeminded new friends all over the world, thank you for building a community overflowing with love, for giving us a place to belong, a place that felt safe and welcoming.
thank you for the music, the art, the mentorship, the friendship, the fashion, for teaching us, for changing our perspectives, for enlightening us, for smashing through boundaries time and time again, thank you for sharing your gift with us during your brief time here on Earth 🫶🏻
until we meet some day, somehow.. in another time, another space, on a higher plane.
