There was a time when I danced without thinking.
Music would hit, and my body would move before my mind could catch up.
Somewhere along the way, I got in my head…
I never stopped loving ska-punk. I never stopped needing it.
But there was a stretch of my life where it felt easier to lean into electronic music than to face how much I was losing touch with everything else.
It was something I shared with the people around me, when a lot of other parts of myself felt distant.
It was easy to lose myself in the bass, the movement, the moment — and for a while, that was enough.
But slowly, something started to change.
The energy in the rooms felt different.
The crowds, the music, even the reasons people showed up — it all shifted in ways I couldn’t quite explain, but could feel in my bones.
The place that once felt like home didn’t feel like home anymore.
I kept showing up anyway.
Chasing the feeling I used to have — the freedom, the carelessness, the way the music could carry everything else away.
But it wasn’t the same.
What once felt like pure freedom started to feel harder to find.
Like I was chasing nights that didn’t exist anymore.
I don’t think I realized how much I missed moving because I meant it.
Not to look cool.
Not because the crowd was doing it.
Not because the music told me to.
Just… because I needed to.
It wasn’t until I found myself back at a ska show for the first time in over a decade — horns blasting through the room, the air heavy with heat, alive with music, everyone dancing freely and without a care — that it finally clicked.
Bass shows hadn’t stopped moving — but the dancing had started to feel less free, more choreographed, like everyone knew their part and was just playing along.
But this was different.
This was infectious.
This was energy that didn’t ask permission — the kind that pulled you in before your brain even had time to catch up.
The feeling I thought I’d lost was still in there waiting.
Standing there in the middle of it all, I remembered:
I hadn’t stopped dancing because I wanted to.
I stopped dancing because I’d forgotten how to be free.
Maybe that’s why it hit so hard.
Because ska wasn’t just about movement — it was about belonging.
A scene that pushed back against hate, against racism, against transphobia — a scene that didn’t just make room for everyone, but fought to keep that room safe.
And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t have to fight myself to fit in.
I could just dance.
Maybe it was the energy….
Maybe it was the horns…
Maybe it was just time.
But I felt myself start to move…
It wasn’t pretty.
I didn’t jump right in like nothing had changed.
It was messy.
I was off-beat, half-skanking, half-flailing.
But it felt good.
Better than good — it felt real.
Nobody was judging.
Nobody cared.
And you know what? Neither did I.
I wasn’t thinking about how I looked.
I wasn’t trying to match anyone around me.
I was just moving because it felt right again.
I didn’t walk out of that show fixed.
Life didn’t get any lighter overnight.
But I found something that night — something I didn’t even realize I’d been missing.
I found a scene that made space for everyone. A scene where you belong no matter what brought you to it.
A place where you didn’t have to be perfect.
You just had to show up.
And somehow, that was enough to make me feel free again.
Ska Basically. 
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