Sometimes you plan on being far more prolific than you actually manage to be. For this blog, I have way more drafts than posts. Oops. C'est la vie, my "final year" in New York turned into 3 months, I've flown to San Fran a ton and frankly, there's a lot to do to leave a city this way. I resigned myself to probably not posting any more, until last night.
I was planning on doing a huge horrah after my last day of work, possibly hitting up multiple queer parties and "living it up." Yet, when I got home, I started diving into my old pop punk to hopefully create some kind of mix for my going away party Thursday, and it was over from there. Perusing some of the awful pop punk I used to listen to was laughable, even embarrassing at times. There were some standard favorites, the sort I could still love now (and plan to include in my mix), but some were just abysmal. Awful songs, cliche and sometimes just shitty. I also started noting which were still the most tolerable to hear now, the faster ones, the ones most likely to talk about people and dancing and laughing. But it wasn't always like that, I was always that kid drawn even in the punk world to the cheesy ballad, the lower tempo drawn out emo whine, on repeat, until 2 in the morning. The ones that are the most painful to hear now were my favorites then.
And then by means of inertia, I was out of the punk world and back into my old pre-punk music. It wasn't necessarily chronologically directly before I started listening to punk, but just the music that was more in line with the aesthetic of that drab 90s rock. You know, the kind you play really loud locked up in your bedroom, sprawled on your bed waiting for the music to just swallow you. It was really fitting when I got into astrology to find how much water is in my chart and that I'm a Cancer, cause I used to always say my favorite music was like water, washing over me. And for years in middle and high school, I would lie in my room waiting for the music to wash me away. That, or for when college started.
And that was the shocking moment for me last night, beyond embarrassment, hearing a lot of this old music was in such stark contrast to the life I've built now. Less concerned that it would "taint" me or pull me "back down" to those places it was more of a window to a version of myself that I realize I was finally able to strip away when I came to New York. Who was that person?
Teenage depression in the 90s has become a cliche, you forget how much it really drove your life, if you can even call it driving. Swathed in white American privilege and damn lucky I was as smart as I was, I pulled off A's despite 3 hours sleep on most nights and a commitment to apathy regarding any studies; somehow I had a way out. But if you wanted to epitomize what I did in high school, I would never say "studied hard" or "got in trouble" or partied, nor would I say I was very social, and let's not even talk about dating. No, if I could epitomize what I did in high school it was "feeling" - stuck in my little bubble I consumed music in a way that I'm beyond ashamed to admit now. There's probably distinct parallels with others, but there's no knowing that when you're in it. In hindsight, probably had everything and anything to do with being queer, having an awkward relationship with my body, trans-masculine spectrum, hyper-privilege, the other spectrum, alcoholic household, parents, 90s cynicism, the economy, society, etc. But the realization of any of these determining factors is a paradox itself: if you knew, you had a foot out.
I didn't set out to talk about depression, and I'm going to try to say something very neat about it because I have other things to say. The current streak of suicides really stresses me, not just because it is terrible, but even moreso because there are ways in which I can't relate. My depression was never such a direct anxiety that I ever wanted to end myself; there was never a 1:1 correlation of, I am gay and that is bad so I am bad and must stop being. The only ending I was ready for was when it hit senior year that everything was about to change and I could go with it or insist on remaining the kid holed up in my room. I chose the former, and more than anything, knew it was a choice, and consider my 18th year to be the closest thing to rebirth I will ever taste.
I've "purged" a lot of my things recently, and the next week is going to really, really suck as I pack and mail everything. A big part of this process is deciding to get rid of the mass majority of my books. I realize the old ones choke me with obligation that intensely suppresses my drive to keep reading; they hold me back. Instead, the more books that find a welcome home, the better I feel; it was the right choice. But last night, going through my digital tome of music I realized the intense anxiety of losing this or that album, even if I could never ever listen to it again. My old bedroom is gone, as well as my belongings, but the music is still there. I don't have time for another "purge" as I need to deal with physical objects right now, but it is something I will have to consider when I get to the bay.
My return of Saturn is in theory right now, and I will never know if that is the "reason" or really just the conducive environment for all these shifts. This is the time people quit smoking, stop drinking, get married, have a kid...you know, those big life change things that were somehow not addressable until this moment. Yes, I do finally see myself as an adult, moving across the country, considering a car, a house, a life; but if anything truly cathartic about this experience is hitting me, it's losing that kid laid out sadly and without agency in that bedroom. I like to say quite often that "punk rock saved my life" because it's cheesy, and absurd, but because it also is in some way true. It pulled me out of that "feeling bubble" to a new relation to my body, and motion, and people and connection. And so, however cheesy and absurd it is at times, it's mostly the only older music of mine I can still listen to, being integral to this rebirth.
The main exception to this rule (regarding what I can still listen to) would be Third Eye Blind's self-titled; it always had an edge to it, a plea to get out; it was an intensely self-aware album that something is awry and there's better out there, but Jenkins is swimming in too much hurt to find a way. Which is what makes the album's crowning achievement "Motorcycle Drive By." I just might have listened to this gem several times last night; it's the moment you finally step away from it, and it hits you how that self-perpetuating shitstorm that was your mental state was toxic.
It's knowing that you're leaving New York, for real, and a lot of that baggage of status and image and family and the grips of the city can all be let go of, and it's triumphant. It's the ownership that you can find a better way of living, and you have to be your own determiner of that, like you've always ever been. It's breaking up with New York, dumping it, and changing your number so it doesn't call again, except maybe for a catch-up brunch in a few months after you've both moved on. It's the purge, it's the catharsis, it's the moment you realize you will never again be that kid because you've so definitively changed your life for it to be impossible. It's pandora's box, except for happiness and what you want and need and deserve and are within the right and ability to ask for, and get.
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