I can\u2019t listen to Adele\u2019s 25<\/em> without crying. When her third studio record first arrived in the world, I was withering away in a grimy, cockroach-infested apartment in Washington Heights. I braved the sweaty A train downtown two or three days a week for a fruitless, unfulfilling internship. I ate ramen for dinner, meandered through garbage-laden streets to whittle away the evening hours, and didn\u2019t own a mattress. From the prickly kiss-off \u201cSend My Love (To Your New Lover)\u201d to the serene, riverside haunting of \u201cRiver Lea,\u201d the 11-track torch collection nurtured me through one of the most transitional periods in my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Loneliness and sorrow pooled around my body, and 25<\/em> reflected, in moon-shaped puddles, a numbness back into my eyes. Mistakes and regrets rattled their chains, as I fell deeper into slumber \u4e00 I\u2019m speaking quite literally and metaphorically here. Around me, the world quivered with life and purpose, yet I felt nothing. Nothing. Nothing tears you apart more savagely than everything. Adele\u2019s balladeering seared through skin and directly into my veins, becoming, in essence, a striking potion of what it means to feel lost and sad. I\u2019d often put on 25<\/em>, slip my earbuds in, and tumble like Alice fell into the rabbit hole, the hardwood doing a real number on my back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n