If you're in a place, #15: All the Feelsy Emo Jams

If you’re in a place, listen to this playlist I made of early 2000s cheesy emo songs.

From a very young age, I felt a lot. Some might argue too much. I remember, very distinctly, the feeling I felt when, on a summer day, and after months of my mom’s refusal, she bought me a double scoop of Thrifty Ice Cream, and I promptly lost it to the hot concrete the second we stepped outside the sliding doors. I remember the feeling I had when I met my first crush. A girl named Christina. I remember how it felt when, halfway through kindergarten, she moved schools, and I never saw her again. I remember looking through the doors of the classroom for two weeks in hopes she’d come back; maybe she’s just sick, I thought. I remember the smell of our house on Almadale Ave. on Saturday mornings during the weekends my dad was home and sober and not sleeping in the garage. Chorizo con huevos. A side of fried potatoes with seasoned salt.

Most of my life, I thought I was alone in all of this feeling. I thought I /must/ be odd, to feel so much all of the time. I felt stranded in my own head.

I realize how ridiculous this sounds, but that all changed the first time I listened to Act Your Age by Home Grown. I was fourteen years old, and my best friend Chris asked me repeatedly to listen to the album. I pushed back for weeks, too caught up in my underground hip hop records. One day, I finally gave in, and he played the first track, “Nowhere Slow.” A series of typical upbeat pop-punk power chords. An octave lead that rung out and bled into the verse. And the lead singer, Adam, began to sing:

“It seems the harder that I try, the further I fall behind. I’m falling behind. So many things I just don’t know. All these decisions and too little time to decide them. I wonder why I even try.”

I was fourteen. How many decisions did I really have to make? Relatively few. But, at the time, it felt like so many. This album led to others. Blink-182 and Alkaline Trio. Jawbreaker and Bright Eyes. Saves the Day and Dashboard Confessional. Taking Back Sunday and Death Cab for Cutie. When I should’ve spent nights doing homework, I spent nights towing my friends to shows in my mom’s green Dodge Caravan. She never knew how far we were going, or how late we were staying out. Chain Reaction. The Glasshouse. The Troubadour.

And, at these places, I sang out loud with other people who felt these songs in their bones as well. We jumped in unison. Danced. Hugged. Threw our arms around each other and skipped in the saddest of circle pits. I made lifetime friends just from seeing the same faces every week. Kids from San Diego and Downey and Bellflower and Hollywood.

The songs were mostly upbeat, as if to say, “If we’re going to be sad, we might as well have fun while we’re at it.”

And I felt, when I needed it the most, connected. Part of something. Like all of these feelings living inside of me, they didn’t make me weird at. Not odd. Not alone. No. They’re what made me whole.