PERS ; SEND OUT AN SOS CALL.

you don't think of high school anymore.

you don't remember the time your crush drove you home, blasting ghetto music for kicks. you don't remember all the places you used to eat lunch. you don't remember the crazy things you tried to pull off as fashion as a stupid freshman. you don't remember why picking a homecoming limo was such a big deal and why people threw hissy fits over it. you don't remember the reasons behind fallouts or why everyone bitched about each other so much. you don't remember hating high school, but you don't really remember liking it all that much either.

most of all, you don't remember why you were so insecure. teenagers all go through their phases but yours seemed unnecessarily overdramatic. you do remember writing in your yellow notebooks and on blogs here and there about all the things people said about you, nitpicking and finding too many things wrong with yourself, traits you tried too hard to fix that they just ended up fighting and staying, anyway. you decried your lack of experiences and hated "not having a life"; little did you know that you knew a lot more than you thought you did, did a lot more than you thought you did, and that all those times staying in your room taught you discipline, if anything.

you don't regret your insecurity, nor do you regret those nights of introspection. you are a bit curious how you got out of that teenage funk. you're three months away from becoming a real adult, no -teen stuck to your age. you know you're mature but you're scared to be mature by age, scared to know that now you are expected to be mature. you know you've improved but you don't think too much about it. in truth, you couldn't really describe yourself if you could. maybe that was it; you didn't dwell too much on all the things people said about you, all the judgments and expectations surrounding you, and you just let it float right on. or maybe it was the people you started surrounding yourself with, people who didn't degrade you or make you feel awkward, people who were accepting of all your flaws.

that, coupled with the realization that everyone, really everyone has his or her own problems, is enough to make it through.

photo | ellie ▲ ; flickr

MUSE ; REUNIONS OF SORTS.

a new york uppity hipster mentions that he's listening to fenix tx ("they're old, you've probably never heard of them"). allister is playing in the locker room. i look up from my bike machine to see eisley playing on mtvu. taking back sunday is having a concert in my dream; i barely recognize the melody but find myself mouthing the words unconsciously.

these past few weeks i've been bombarded with music of years past, bands that i would religiously listen to in middle/high school but have long forgotten about now (and i'm surprised other people haven't forgotten about them either - most were, at best, mediocre). there were the mornings eating breakfast before zero period devouring my issue of ap magazine. i'd proudly wear my band shirts and almost instantly harbored crushes on the boys who'd recognize them. i was always recommending "underrated" bands to my friends (though looking back, they were all pretty overrated since emo/post-hardcore/alternative was trendy among teenagers back then, just like now it's all about electro or indie folk or whatever).

the point is, i loved music like crazy back then. i was a judgmental snotty prick for sure, but i actively looked for new music, new bands, new sounds to fuel my fire. i wondered what i'd end up listening to in five years, if i would still be into the same music then, if the scene would still exist in the future (it does! sort of.) of course, my music tastes have now changed to korean ballads and bad top 40, and revisiting new songs from all those older bands is just not the same (have they gotten worse, or has my taste just changed?). but listening to old favorites, the songs that captivated my heart, the lyrics that perfectly encapsulated what i was feeling in a way that only emo music can to a young, immature teenager, the bass lines that i could instantly identify riff per riff - even years afterward, i still recognize every beat, every word, and my audiophilic heart melts bit by bit.

i think this is what they call nostalgia.

playing | "play crack the sky" - brand new
photo | pearled ; flickr