Emo at 21

Emo is like a thing of early teenaged angst and I realize this, but I can't help listen to it on a regular basis. It makes me feel a tiny bit a live again, like I have something to pissed about. My parents and their privacy issues, my siblings and their intolerance, my school mates and their lack of friendly attention.

Not in a "I'm going postal on your asses," kinda way, but in a I feel very okay about my life at the moment, and I just want a musical distraction, not a real one. People are constantly poking fun at Emo. The visual aspects are always fun to mock. Greasy skinny kids in jeans, with tattoos and body piercings, their black hair hanging in their eyes, using Sharpies to draw on their Chuck T's. Its like a modern day soft core punk wannabe convention, with A LOT more crying. The name, the bands, the sound. I always wonder why. I suppose anything out of range-normal is an easy target and these kids are anything but normal. They are feeling in ways that their parents never could have managed at their age. We've been a long time coming...

In The Breakfast Club, the character Allison says to the group who are seated on the floor of the library, "I'm thinking your heart dies as you get older". The question of "Who cares?" is offered and she responds vehenamently with "I do!". That right there, is the heart and soul of emo.

Its about kids not giving it up to become adults. Not giving up the ability to feel as they get older, not giving up on having fufillment like they did at 6. Growing oldering but not more ridgid and learning and becoming without forgetting. Its always good to keep your roots close, and that is what emo is doing. As children we are free to cry, free to hug, free to feel the same way in a group of 50, 5, or even just 1. We are a generation that is sure emotions are integrual to living and I'm positive we're right.

So next time you pass one of those emo kids on the street and you think about how odd they are, just consider the fact that its hard to live life with the emotional passion of 8, at 21. I know.