And just like that, August comes to an end today. Being my birth month, August obviously means a lot to me. I learned to love my birthday from my mother, and as I grew older, I graduated from celebrating just my birthday to claiming a whole birth week, to deciding only the entire month will do. And then, in the middle of the pandemic, Taylor Swift gave me august, the eighth track on her eighth studio album, escalating my already excessive love for my birth month to entirely unreasonable new heights.
It is harder than usual to say goodbye to August this time around, because doing so means finally saying goodbye to 38. I turned 38 on 3.8, an age that holds both my birthday and my late mother’s (August 3rd and March 8th) mirrored within it. That serendipitous realisation, which struck me three years ago, is the reason I am anchored in the conviction that 38 is destined to be the most monumental age of my life (so far). The second most monumental age should be 83… if I am fortunate enough to see it 😅
As far as the government is concerned, I turned 39 exactly four weeks ago. But as far as I am concerned, I’mma be 38 until the end of August because my 38th year was life-changing, and I am not ready to give it up just yet.
But alas! The end of August is here, and the time has come for me to grow up whether I want to or not 🥲
The title of today’s post is stolen borrowed from the opening track of Noah Kahan’s achingly beautiful fourth album, The Great Divide: The Last of the Bugs.
On the day I had 38 days left of being 38, I put up a Q&A post of 38 questions with a strong focus on my mum because that was OUR age. And one of the questions, which I conveniently asked myself, gave me an excuse to talk about my love for Noah Kahan.
My love for Noah Kahan has only grown exponentially since then, and so I am excited that today’s post gives me an opportunity to explore that love through the lens of mental health.
Noah Kahan is often described as a “mental health artist” because mental health is a huge part of both his personal story and his music. He was diagnosed with depression when he was young and has been in therapy since, and a lot of his music deals with loneliness, depression, anxiety, isolation, feeling stuck, self-doubt, and trying to find meaning. This is especially noticeable on Stick Season, where songs such as Growing Sideways, The View Between Villages (a personal fave 🥹) and Orange Juice touch on different forms of emotional struggle, relationships, addiction, nostalgia, and trying to reconnect with yourself.
End of August is about standing at the edge of a season, knowing things are changing and grieving what is being lost, but also recognising that those feelings are part of being alive. It captures a universal feeling of watching your hometown, your relationships, or even a version of yourself slip away as time moves forward. The song uses the end of summer as a metaphor for the moment when carefree days give way to responsibility, and like much of Noah Kahan’s music, it is emotionally ambiguous enough that anyone listening can connect it to breakups, friendships, family, or simply growing up.
Which is my favourite thing about Noah Kahan’s music. Everyone and their mama knows I am a Swiftie AF, and I consider her the greatest songwriter of my generation. I mean, the fact that she is the youngest woman and second youngest person ever to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame says everything about her pen game. But because her songs are not emotionally ambiguous, it is difficult to relate them to anything other than their subject matter. If a song is about a breakup, I can appreciate its artistry and craft, but I can only relate it to a breakup. But with Noah Kahan, by focusing on the core feeling rather than the specific details, his lyrics act like a mirror for whoever is listening. One song can relate to a partner for one person, a sibling for another, and a childhood best friend for yet another.
For me, in particular, one song can make me think about more than one person. Take American Cars, which, gun to my head, is my favourite song on The Great Divide. It makes me think about my mum, my sister, and myself. Verse one is for me, verse two is for both my mum and my sister, and the entire song is for all of us.
Some of End of August’s central themes include nostalgia and memory, fear of change and stagnation, and mental health and feeling alive. If you have ever wrestled with the tension between wanting life to move forward and feeling stuck in familiar patterns, experienced the bittersweetness of being caught between leaving and staying, or searched for meaning through discomfort or struggle, then End of August is for you. One of the strongest emotions in the song is the realisation that you cannot pause life. Even if you want to stay in a familiar place or keep someone close, time keeps moving, and you are forced to move with it.
Centred on the fleeting nature of time, End of August captures the final stretch of something you know is temporary, making each moment feel more intense because you know it will not last. There is a sadness in the way Noah Kahan approaches memory, not as something already lost to the past, but as something you can feel disappearing even as you are still living it. Which is especially poignant for me at 38. Lawd knows I would give almost anything to stay 38 forever. But, like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.
Rather than telling one specific story, Noah Kahan leaves enough space for listeners to project their own experiences onto his songs. And my specific experience with End of August is tied to the lyrics in this post’s feature image.
Circa 2011/2012 was the first time I was prescribed medication for bipolar disorder, and I fucking hated it. It made my emotions flatline because that was what the meds were supposed to do. People struggling with bipolar disorder can experience manic and depressive episodes, so the medication helps keep one’s mood from swinging from one extreme to another. As a result, I went through life in a very subdued manner as it was impossible to feel any emotion at full capacity because the meds would not allow me to. Which I absofuckinglutely hated because:
Fast forward to over a decade later when, in November 2024, I was prescribed antidepressants and antianxiety meds by my GP. However, I did not take those with any seriousness, hence I was prescribed another antidepressant by a consultant psychiatrist in December after my therapist referred me to him. Those, at least, I took seriously, because being on your third type of medication will make you take your depression seriously. I took the meds for a combined six months, but I did not hate them as much as I hated the 2012 meds.
I have not needed to go back on antidepressants since my treatment ended, and I hope I am never prescribed them again. But that is the thing about life: it does not owe us pretty.
I may not have any meds to go off of the minute that September hits, but I am definitely feeling alive for the first time in a long time.
Okay, that is a lie. I have been feeling alive all year, and I love that for me! I know I said that the way Noah Kahan writes so openly about therapy, medication, and depression speaks to me like no other artist has before. But since I only started listening to him around May, when my mental health was significantly improved, it has been a remarkable listening experience, understanding and empathising but not relating. Because weuh! If his songs had found me in 2024 or 2025, I would have had to listen to them under medical supervision, and probably would have needed a fourth type of medication. I mean, just look at what he had to say about The Great Divide:
I have been feeling alive for a long time now, and that is one thing I am not playing with anyfuckingmore. Not just feeling alive, but staying alive.