5pm_weds | thirty-eight. [THEME: trick or treat] (Reply)

Ceremony
Artist: New Order
Album: Marie Antoinette OST
Year: 1981
♥: Once upon a time, I thought dancing was stupid. GASP. I know. The first time I went to Saph, barely 18, I sat upstairs and raised a disdainful eyebrow at the people on the dancefloor. You all look like idiots, I thought to myself, sipping a beer and continuing some drunkenly political conversation with people I hardly knew.

...clearly, I've changed a lot since I was 18. Now: I don't drink beer, I don't talk politics, and the last thing I would ever think is that someone looks stupid when they dance.

Alright, so that sad part of my past is out of the way: let me set the scene for this song.
It's October 2006, my second year living on my own. My roommate and I decide to throw a Halloween party. It'll be the first real house party either of us has ever hosted, and we're terribly excited. We buy booze, set up a mini-pumpkin-painting station, bake cupcakes and set Corpse Bride on loop. I remember so vividly the day of that party: instead of heading back to Rigaud, I met up with Daniel and Emily and we went to the SAQ, giddy and giggling, and I was thinking about ~my boyfriend~ and loving being in the city and I was hit with the realization that This Is College Life.

Ah, but.
There were issues with the aforementioned boyfriend [and issues with myself for having issues, oh you know the cycle], and I'd just got my 18C Novel midterm back with the lowest grade I'd ever get at McGill (I cared a lot about grades, then). So before the guests started arriving, I had a bit of a breakdown in my bedroom. I felt inadequate, I felt insecure, I felt very, very alone.

All of our friends came. We raged. It was a success, though no one danced. The night was drawing to a close, cups & bottles & Sharpied-up balloons everywhere, and music still blaring the playlist I'd spent a night making instead of writing a paper. Said playlist was full of songs from the Marie Antoinette soundtrack -- still one of my most defining October albums, rife with all the conflict and weirdness of Fall '06. And then, this song came on.
My friend Kat squealed (she loves Joy Division). I was drunk, at that point, and I felt this surge of something intense. I'll never be able to define it, articulate it, but before I knew it I had grabbed her hand and we were pushing people out of the way to get to the speakers and DANCE.

It was the first time I danced the way I do now: no holds barred, every part of my heart on display, immune to everything but the music and how strongly I felt, pointfinale, not felt for someone or something or about this or that, but just felt.
I'll break them down, no mercy shown.
Nothing else mattered but that feeling, my bare feet, the music, Kat's hand in mine, and our heads shaking until the world blurred.
Trick or treat: polar opposites (Jill at 18, Jill at 25) shifted & combined in that one 20-year-old Halloween moment.

We used to use MySpace in 2006, and there was a profile section for "Heroes." Kat listed all her best friends, with reasons why. After that night, she changed mine from something to do with intelligence to:

"Jill -- for dancing like the floor is on fire."
I'll live the rest of my life settling for nothing less.