appreciation post for the strokes✨
this is an appreciation post for the strokes.
i was remembering that time when i was 14, feeling lonely, inadequate, completely out of place, already diagnosed with a progressive, debilitating, incurable disease. i didn’t have friends and i was always lying about having headaches or stomachaches so i could avoid school.
on those days when i stayed home, i used to watch MTV for hours. one day, juicebox started playing and i became obsessed. i remember thinking the video was kind of explicit and hiding whenever my mom walked by because i was terrified she would see it. i also developed a massive crush on julian casablancas and he made me feel things in my body*…* literally i felt dirty watching that video.
youtube wasn’t really a thing in mexico back then, so i kept MTV on all day just to hunt for that video. i downloaded the strokes’ songs from limewire and listened to them on loop, especially juicebox.
that period of my life was incredibly dark. i felt completely alienated from everyone and from myself. i hated myself, and suicidal thoughts had started appearing.
…and then there was juicebox.
for the three minutes and 12 seconds that song lasted, i could forget where i was. forget my body, my disease, school, loneliness, all of it.
i felt like i was dissolving into molecules, losing the boundaries of myself, and somehow returning to the universe, to the nucleus of everything???
sometimes i wonder if that’s what drugs feel like. i wouldn’t know, bc my drug was the strokes, and i consumed them obsessively because i needed something to get me through the depression and the feeling that i didn’t want to be alive.
Fast forward to today, my health has gotten significantly worse. i’m now housebound because of my disease. my body is extremely weak, and i depend on oxygen and tube feeding to keep me alive. the suicidal thoughts still come back sometimes.
BUT the strokes released a new album… and guys, i am OBSESSED again.
i can literally feel the dopamine running through my body. i can’t stop smiling. i feel this intense warmth radiating from my heart through my body and somehow into everything around me.
my body is dissolving into molecules again.
i’m back. it’s me and the whole.
is this God? i don’t know.
but THANK YOU the Strokes.
your music makes me feel so fucking grateful to be alive.
i was born into a sick body that has taken me to some of the deepest and darkest places i’ve ever known, places that sometimes feel impossible to climb out of, but your music has pulled me out of them more than once, and more than that, it has made me experience what feels like heaven.
like literally i was crying while listening Reality Awaits, i’m just so grateful to be alive in this moment and share existence with the strokes.
so this is my appreciation post for the strokes.
thank you for the three minutes and 12 seconds.
…and for all the years in between🫶