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I remember being about 6 or 7 years old when music became as essential to my livelihood as breathing. I never felt the desire to play an instrument, I was obsessed with the way music moved through every molecule of my existence. I could feel it move through my ears and into my nervous system, always letting it course my veins, fueling my mental space, deepening my capacity to exist.

I don’t remember when I got my first pair of headphones, but I do remember when I got my first portable CD player. It was silver and transparent purple with matching headphones. THOSE headphones became the first pair that you would’ve thought were glued to my head. I loved the escape the headphones offered me; they allowed the music to be all encompassing, slowly becoming the soundtrack to my existence as I moved throughout the world. In my 20s I was living with a boyfriend and after we started sleeping in separate spaces of the apartment my days began with my earbuds in, iPod cued, and a few cigarettes for breakfast. Everyday. It was the small bit of peace I could find back then.

Over a decade later many things have changed about me and my life, that restless love of music and it’s impact on my existence remains.

People love making fun of millennials for not letting go of our early 2000s emo, pop punk, alternative era. To that I say, fuck off (please know that, mentally, I said that with my whole chest). This genre of music is some of the most thought provoking, coming of age, motivating lyricism our generation will ever know and we got to experience it in REAL TIME. I have also noticed that as I venture through inner teenager healing that those burnt CDs and lyrics mean just as much to me now as they did way back when.

When I realized that I was about to embark on another shedding and transformation stage of the journey the best route for immediate comfort would be a playlist with all of my favorite songs that make the weight and fear feel nonexistent. I was pretty delighted with how it shaped up on my first go! Truth be told, I have a touch of the OCD (word on the street is that it runs comorbid with AuDHD, lucky me) and that typically results in me overthinking the playlist with constant “tweeking” of the arrangement. This time I let intuition take charge; before I started I had a quick memory of my iPod shuffle stick I had at 16 years old and knew I should let that version of me take the wheel on stacking the songs.

Each song placed on the list does something magical to my brain- I am unsure of how to explain it other than they decorate my inner world with hope, motivation, possibility, and reassurance.

Within this perfect playlist you would find Best of You and Learn to Fly by Foo Fighters, a range of Anberlin songs that span across various albums, Move Along by All American Rejects, Wish You the Best by Blackbear, Hell or High Water by Major Lazer, quite a few Florence + The Machine songs, Daylight by Matt and Kim, Slide by Calvin Harris… a variety of early 2000s emo mixed with Gen Z emo and a splash of EDM.

I do get a good giggle when I scroll the playlist because the whole 2hrs and 26mins are a FANTASTIC representation of my personality!

It has also been playing on repeat since I have started writing again. When I put my big headphones on to plug in that first time it felt like being transported back to 19 year old me sitting in the halls of the community college I went to with my headphones in while I contemplated what to write about on my blog, Pollie Perfect. I didn’t care that my following was teeny tiny, I just loved writing. It was hard to not compare my blog to other girls’ blogs- they seemed to figure out the algorithm of cool at the time and I felt lost in it all.

My headphones felt magical though. Every lyric poured into my ears, motivating me to write, slowly reinforcing the belief that I am the main character and this is the soundtrack to my glorious story. I didn’t know how much I needed this feeling to return after 16 years. Music had become my numbing agent in my 20s and that carried through until one Saturday night when I pulled my headphones out, hit play on the playlist I had rambunctiously made earlier in the week, and started letting the words pour out of me. Even now, my Sony headphones are on and (*Fin) by Anberlin is full force; a melodic symphony granting permission to just say whatever I have to fucking say or get off my chest. Music is funny in that way I suppose; it transports, elevates, inspires, becomes a part of the rhythm of our existence.

Makes a whole lot of sense why the music industry is so vile, music hits a part of the psyche tied to our perception of our existence- the evil overlords want control of our minds… Josie and the Pussycats (2001 film starring Rachel Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson, and Tara Cook) was spot on with it. Them and The Eagles tried telling us!

That’s a topic for another day though.