Embarrassing Teenaged Me

My last few posts have taken a lot of emotional energy.

So I thought I’d lighten the mood by getting something off my chest.

When I was in high school (which was, you know, not that long ago….*cough*) you could only like a one kind of music.

You could like EITHER hip hop and dance music, OR alternative/rock music.


Not both.

If you liked both, you didn’t FIT anywhere.  And high school is all about where you FIT.  So you just had to choose.

And I fell into the alternative/rock category.  Dressed in silvers jeans and halter tops with ball chain jewelry and rings on all my fingers, undone plaid shirts for jackets and a big yellow Sport Walkman on my hip all the time. In order to fit into the skater crowd I surrounded myself with I needed to do just two things:

1. Love punk/rock/alternative music.  The more obscure the better.

2. Passionately hate rap/hip-hop/dance music.  And obviously country, too.  I mean, that was a whole other group of kids who wore trench coats and cowboy hats! 

So I did.  

It was all lamenting that the Sex Pistols were before my time (shut up!  They were way before my time!) and listening to the Rainbow Butt Monkeys before they changed their name to the radio friendly Finger 11.
While simultaneously mocking the preppy kids and their gangsta-rap in the suburbs.

I wore a black arm band when Kurt Cobain died.  My first concert was Green Day when I was 13 and they had *just* made it big. I tried desperately to sneak into the dirty rocker bar in town to see Hole.  I talked my way back-stage to meet Our Lady Peace, I begged until my parents let me go to Edgefest.  I owned even the crappy old albums from The Offspring.  I spent my mornings getting creeped out watching Soundgarden on Much Music (The Canadian version of MTV, back when they both actually played music videos) and discussing the profound political meanings behind every Tool video.
I even managed to fall desperately in ‘love’ with a local indie musician.
 Or two.  

Even though I was a huge try-hard poser just desperate to belong, I was committed to the rock music cause.  Which meant under no circumstance was I ever seen listening to Top 20 music.  Ever.

So for the most part, as lame as it makes a mom in her early 30’s, I still love me some rock music.

Rockin’ in my minivan, it’s all Skillet and Reliant K , Our Lady Peace and ‘seven nation army couldn’t hold me baaaaaack…...’  keeping me sane when I turn it up to drown out the kids.

Freckles at 6 years old.

But darkness has creeped into my life, and it’s happened while I’ve been running.
Slowly but surely, a new playlist has found it’s way onto my phone.

Because while my average music playlist sounds just like the one above, when I’m running…. well it sounds a whole lot less like Thousand Foot Krutch and a whole lot more like FUN and  Kelly Clarkson and before you know it I’m racing down the street to ‘save a horse ride a…….’

I’m so ashamed.

That’s my dirty little secret my friends.

But guess what?

When I was a teenager, I was far too concerned about fitting in to stray in my music choices.

But I’m a grown-ass woman now for goodness sakes!

And if  I want to hear ‘I love you like a love song bay-beeee’ while I am running down the street in the snow at 6 a.m., I’ll frickin’ download Selena Gomez with NO SHAME!

Okay.

Maybe a little shame.

So tell me, what’s your favorite music to sit in the car to, and is it any different from your workout mix?

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