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How Mac Miller saved My life from beyond the grave

The first time I ever heard a song by Malcolm McCormick I was probably about 12 years old. I remember leaving the locker room of my middle school in seventh grade and blasting Donald Trump and Party on 5th ave in my earbuds. Unfortunately that would be the extent of my getting to know Mac until many years later. Today I consider myself one of his largest fans, a self bestowed title that I don't ever see fading. As I type this, I have a 14 hour playlist full of mixtapes, beat tapes, scrapped albums, and leaks all stored away in my files. But even with all that said, it still took until the release of Swimming in 2018 that I was captured by the sound and personality of the young Pittsburg rapper. The summer of 2018 was memorable to me for many reasons, fresh outta highschool, heading off to college soon, and the realest relationship I ever had in my life up to that point. But above all else I remember it because that is when I really met my best friend, someone who even in death has been right next to my heart. It was the summer I became reacquainted to Malcolm McCormick.

Oftentimes I feel bad that I missed out on being a fan for nearly the entire lifespan of such a gifted and truly blessed young artist. But I think the fact that I am writing this, and that Mac has had such an impact on me regardless speaks volumes about the kind of person he was, the art he made, and the feelings it invokes. Three days after the release of Swimming I came across the viral clip on twitter of Mac singing 2009 on the Tiny Desk show. From there it might as well have been history. Swimming would go on to soundtrack the rest of my summer and beyond. It’s an album I’ve probably spun, in full, over 500 times. Seriously. Yet while there are now so many memories associated with all the times this album has now soundtracked for me, if I close my eyes and listen I can still be taken all the way back to my first few listens. The long

summer nights, the innocence of falling in love for the first time, feeling young and invincible after crossing the stage at graduation, packing up my bags, saying goodbye to my family, and heading off to school. Music is a vehicle for our memories, and swimming still runs all the back to the start just as if we never left.

I’ve been asked “Why do you care so much about him? He’s just a rapper you never met.” and sure I suppose that is true, but Mac Miller is so much more than that. He’s a human being, one that grew up right beside us, he grew up with us and put out music that we could relate to with him as we matured and moved on in our lives. Swimming was and still is somewhat of a bible to me. I remember getting to college and ruining the relationship I had, having no friends, and being all alone in a brand new place. But Mac was a guide, he helped me get back on my feet. College is a place where you have to find yourself, and those first few months there I had lost myself. But Swimming is almost just as much a story about finding yourself and growing up as my own experience of going to college. It went hand in hand with what I was going through. The highs as well as the lows, but most importantly a message to just keep going, because all we know is that “it is what it is till it aint”. I think that's the beauty of it all. He’s always been right by my side. The amount of times I’ve reminded myself “Oh I’ve been a fool but it's cool that's what human beings do.” Is incalculable, especially in times of turbulence such as those.

I remember laying in bed on September 7th 2018, and receiving the news of his death. I remember the first thing I did was go and order a Swimming hoodie off the website. I don’t know why, maybe I thought if I had a piece of his merch he’d still be around, who knows. The second thing I did was cry. At this point I had really only taken a deep dive into Swimming and I still felt like I lost a friend. In the days and weeks following I discovered the treasure trove of

Mac Miller's discography. From the carefree anthems of K.I.D.S., to the haunting and heart wrenching deep cuts of Watching Movies and GO:OD AM, I fell in love. After consuming all this music and listening to the journey and progression of Mac Miller not just as an artist, but as a human, it’s hard not to feel like you’ve known him your whole life.

Almost a year and a half later I discovered Faces. Or at least I finally downloaded Faces.

I had known of its existence for a while but I found something comforting in there being an album I had never heard. Almost like he’s still out there, still dropping music for us and still growing up beside us. But as I unknowingly entered into the darkest period of my life, I found the need for a comforting voice telling me it would be okay. Winter of 2019 was a period of deep depression, unhealthy coping mechanisms, and a strong general desire to not be alive. I had experienced battles with depression a few other times in the years leading up, but never one as prolonged, scary, and out of the blue as this. I turned to Mac as the beacon he had proven to be in the 18 months since Swimming. I was expecting something similar to the albums of those times, maybe something like the hopeful and encouraging sentiments of 2015s GO:OD AM, or even something as sage and wise as Swimming. Instead I found a young man crying out for help. I found someone in despair. Faces is the quintessential album of depression. However it still carries high energy, boastful choruses, and incredible wordplay. It’s everything I was feeling at the time. I would tell people I was fine, I would tell them I was better than I ever had been. I would even try to convince myself of that. But it simply wasn't true. It’s an album that wore the same mask I did and walked right beside me the whole time. One morning I woke up covered in the dinner I had vomited up in my sleep the night before. The result of a session of binge drinking which I could only describe as a cry for help. But when my sister approached me about it, concerned, and wanting to help me, I pushed her away. I told her I was fine, “this was normal”

I would say, or, “ Chill I’m just having some fun”. The rest of the day I could only think of the bars from Angel Dust, “Woke up annihilated lyin’ on the pavement covered in items I regurgitated” and in some weird twisted way it made me feel less alone. Through Faces, Mac Miller was the only person I let inside my mind that winter.

At the very worst part of this winter, I had decided on a date that I was going to end it all on. I can’t recall the date and I don’t think I actually thought I was going to do it, but I had become so fed up with life I had to at least think the end was near. I wrote the chorus to Grand Finale on a sticky note and put it inside my phone case, my last message to the world. Obviously I didn't follow through, and a few weeks later Circles was announced. I remember laying on the floor of my apartment crying as soon as I heard “This is what it look like, right before you fall” and while I cant say that Circles alone would be what helped me out of this pit I had lying in all winter, it at least acted as a rope or a ladder to help me climb out. Once again Mac had given me a guide book, the most timely music I’ve ever heard. Swimming, Faces, and now this, all just in time to swoop in and save me. Telling me it's okay to cry, it's okay to be alone, it's okay to be human and to hurt. But it's not okay to waste away and do nothing about it. Mac Miller taught me so many things, but above all else he showed me how to keep swimming. “Keep your eyes to the sky never glued to your shoes”. He reminded me that “I’m just a human, let me make mistakes”. He taught me how to live. After all “A life ain't a life till you live it” As I’ve said before, I have had my fair share of troubles in regards to my own mental health over the past few years , depression, anxiety, not wanting to be here anymore, etc. But the whole reason I sat down to write this is because of a revelation I had only hours ago today. On a day where the will to keep going was particularly low, I sat at my computer and found myself wishing it was over, wishing I was gone or that I would just have a stroke or something and die

at any second. Something that has crossed my mind on many occurrences in times like these is a line from Everybody, off Circles. It goes “If you’re with me I won’t go away”. I had always interpreted this to mean that as long as we're with Mac as fans, and we carry him in our hearts, he’ll never go away. It’s a line that I loved the moment I first heard it on January 17th. Because it's true, and as I’ve seen time and time again he truly will live on. However as I’ve stated, I’ve been in and out of my own mental health for a few years now, and as ashamed as I am to admit it, I have an (unfinished) letter to my friends in family in case I find one day that I really am drowning. In an attempt to make myself feel better about such a horrible act I could commit, this was the first line I put in it. As if to tell people that I’m not actually gone, just believe and I’m right there. The difference here is that Mac had no intention to leave us on his own accord, and he had so much in the way of a legacy that he left behind. My own use of that line is selfish and cowardice at best, something I only realized hours ago. As I sat at my computer and wallowed, I received a text from my mother. A picture of my younger brother dressed up as a cowboy. I’ll never know why that moment or that picture shook my brain in this way, but something inside me melted right then. It was like the clouds parted and I saw how selfish I was being. I looked at the picture on my desk of me and my brother and I knew how wrong I was about that line. “If you're​ with me I won't go away”. My family is my anchor, as long as I have my brother, my sister, my mom, dad, friends, family, I won't go away. I can’t. They need me. It was the realization to me that there is a severe difference between looking for reasons just to stay alive, and actually finding reasons to live. That’s not to say I’m not going to struggle with this again. I could wake up tomorrow and be right back at square one. But I feel as if I’ve found my will again. I can’t believe it was right in front of me the whole time or even how close I had come to

missing it entirely. But at least for now, I have some fire and I feel I have a purpose. I owe it all to Mac as I have many times before. Mac Miller saved my life.

I don’t know if I’ll share this, or if anyone will ever read it, but I had to write it down. I had to have it documented. “If you're with me I won't go away”. The beauty and longevity of Mac Miller is truly something irreplicable. As I close this document I find it only fitting that I started at the beginning of swimming and am now writing this sentence to the sounds of the closing synths on the outro to So it Goes.

Swimming in Circles So it Goes Long Live Mac Miller