Words cannot describe how incredible it was to experience my first Warped Tour in Maryland Heights, Missouri, this past week! For those of you who might not know, Warped Tour is an annual music festival where over fifty bands and numerous organizations travel the country meeting fans and performing concerts. I never thought it was really my scene, but after seeing my sister attend for the past five years, I thought I would give it a shot.
I was eager to hear bands play that I listened to since I was in middle school and to visit the To Write Love on Her Arms tent, one of my favorite organizations that creates awareness for mental health issues and works toward suicide prevention. Little did I know I would find myself much more at home in the crowd of people you might call misfits than I imagined I would.
You see, music is powerful. A song often contains more emotion and more truths than one might be able to express on their own. A song may only contain a couple verses, but it reveals the hidden thoughts and feelings that one is battling within their heart. This has always been the case for me.
In my battle with depression, there is no doubt that music played a role in keeping me going. The words many musicians sang about in their songs were the same words of hope that I needed to hear. They were the words that proved that I was not alone, and that other people, too, were battling darkness and addictions.
It was evident at Warped Tour that many others, if not all of them, had found themselves in the same place I had, searching for meaning in the lyrics of a song. If it was not the line at the To Write Love on Her Arms tent or the other countless tents of organizations working towards suicide prevention, anti-bullying campaigns, or support for victims of sexual abuse, it was the scars on the girl's wrists two rows in front of me or the tears of fans that fell during We the Kings' performance of "Just Keep Breathing" that convinced me that I was one of them, too, and that we were in this fight together.
Not only was it the first time that I did not feel alone in a crowd of people, but it was also the revival of hope that I have been looking for after a rough couple weeks at home. I have not been so happy nor felt so alive in the longest time, and I have Warped Tour, the twelve bands I watched perform, and the thousands of fans I shared the experience with to thank for that.
The next time you see someone and label them a misfit, think of me. Think of my experience and my story. You do not know what they are going through, and who knows, maybe the headphones in their ears are blasting the song of hope they need to make it through the day. Let's share in this hope.
