Dear me from a while ago,

 You will like listening to Avril Lavigne because you identify with a struggle that you think she is going through. She will sound like she is frustrated but not quite at the edge. This will appeal to you. 

Then you will move on to Simple Plan because they will speak of death and disappointment. They will present an alternative for the way things could be. This alternative will make you feel free. It’s the short-lived type of freedom, but it’s some type of something. Sometimes, anything is better than nothing, right? 

Somewhere in that murkiness, you will realise how childish and meaningless it is to sing about death. This will lead you to Casting Crowns. They will present doom in a nicely wrapped package. Although their intention will be to show that God is capable of absorbing into Himself all the filth that humanness creates, somehow you will manage to walk away from them thinking only about how filthy you are. They will try to show that even though humans are not willing to overlook your faults and accept you, God is. However, all you will notice is that you have faults, quirks, a strangeness that makes it difficult for you to bond with the others. You are the one who hears whispered conversations, presumably about yourself, followed by poorly disguised laughter. You will be the last one in to find out about their marriage or pregnancy or miscarriage or even that they plan to go out every Saturday night if they can. You will be left watching from the outside. These songs will remind you of that. 

You will, one day, find yourself listening to Sanctus Real and they will remind you of how much you have failed him. They will sing of how far you have gone and how your presence reminds him of your more frequent absence. 

Then, one day, in a humid, moist room, somewhere in a tiny town on the coast of a tiny country, you will stumble on to Tenth Avenue North. Beloved, my dear, God never leaves you. He will wait for you. A lot of the sad songs are about snow and the cold because cold and white translate well into bleakness and despair. He does not only work in the wintery lands. In the heat and humidity, he will seek you. He will dig beneath the sunshine that you hide behind and seek to rid you of your darkness. 

Then you will re-discover Casting Crowns, a few years after that and appreciate how amazing it is to just be held in the arm of he who loves you beyond infinity. 

You will know, as I do now, that he has been waiting for you to come home.