Thanks to Thrice

I got my first Mix-CD from a curly-haired boy the day before my 16^th birthday.

I read the track-names like encrypted messages that held moments I might lose if I didn’t listen hard enough.

My room flooded with bands I’d never heard of and lyrics with more chest-aching truth than I was used to.

It was in this moment that I learned the crippling power of a well-crafted playlist.

Sharing music is inviting someone to listen to pieces of you that aren’t seen or spoken of until heard blaring from the mouth of a tattooed Georgia native in a hardcore band I would have NEVER found on my own.

There is a happiness unique to holding handwritten track listings and poorly drawn album artwork knowing that for the next 76 minutes your life is not entirely your own and for that time you exist in someone else’s perception of the world. 

Making a Mix-CD could easily be considered a form of insanity, because in no logical world would spending 4-6 hours hunched over a computer looking at the same 18 songs trying to arrange them in an order that says “please don’t be afraid but I think I am falling in love with you” be a normal way to behave.

My eyes usually go numb around the 3^rd hour and all the songs start melting together from draft to draft, but the entire time there is an unshakable happiness that reverberates through my bones.

They are not just words or music; they are memories, first kisses and nostalgia for moments that make you stop in the middle of the foreign country and swear you’d been here years ago.

My hands are well acquainted with the “loop” button on my stereo as a result of the Mix-CD’s, but through them I have gained a deeper understanding of what it means to be a happy through the simple connection of a song.