Makes us who we are.

2006

Fifteen years old, my friend Will comes up to me and asks if I've ever heard of Rise Against. Punk rock was a new genre for me, as I was more into rap and 90s country. He handed me his MP3 player and played “Survive” from the album The Sufferer & the Witness.

When the intro finished and the guitar riff punched in, followed by rapid drumfire, I was hooked! Tim McIlrath belts the line “Somewhere between happy, and total f*king wreck. Feet sometimes on solid ground and sometimes at the edge,” and I'm thinking, that's right where I'm at. At 15 and full of teenage angst, you feel you've experienced enough life to relate to such a sentiment. I don’t know what I was going through then, but I can still relate to that feeling now as an adult. Between family, work, and bills, it’s hard to keep up. You start catching up and getting ahead, then BAM! Life happens, and you find yourself back at square one.

Then the chorus traps you with an empathetic “Life for you has been less than kind,” immediately followed by the brutally honest and slightly sarcastic, “so take a number, stand in line.” I needed to hear that, to be reminded that you have to pick yourself up and quit feeling sorry for yourself because no one else will do it for you. Everyone is going through a struggle, and they can't always lend a helping hand. I've always had a do-it-myself attitude, and the final words to the chorus cemented that feeling. “How we survive is what makes us who we are.”

It's okay to reach out for help when you're overwhelmed, but the most important person you can rely on is yourself. It's what makes you who you are.

Will (Left) and Me circa 2006