"I got a good feeling about a bad city tonight." -Matt Freeman in "Detroit".

Will I ever be able to leave this city? I yearn to; it bleeds in me. I have to get out because one more winter around here will be my downfall. But at the same time, I'm so scared to go someplace that isn't home. I know they say home is where you make it, but to me, the metro Detroit area has always been my home. And I don't want to risk losing that safety that I have here. But I don't want to be here anymore.

So this is what goes through my head. I'm struggling with the need for adventure pulling me away and the need for safety pulling me back. I know there's so much more out there and I know that I have it in me. But then there's this voice that tells me not to go anywhere. God, I don't know. Maybe it'll get better. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and know that this is the place I should be. Maybe, but I don't think so.

To stay or not to stay. That is the question. And I'll be damned if I know the answer.

I'm sitting around here listening to Rancid's first album, going over in my head the time in my life that I first discovered them. Man, I remember sitting up all night when I was 14, listening to ...And Out Come the Wolves on repeat on my stereo. I remember being so pissed that I missed them at Warped Tour '98. I remember Megan and me planning on changing the world that year. Man, we really thought we could do it. We really thought that if we tried hard enough, the two of us alone could change years and years of backwards thinking. So we bought the ARA album and wore the patches and listened to Good Riddance and stopped eating meat and this was supposed to be enough. All we ended up doing was changing ourselves.

I remember that night that I first saw Rancid. It was like fucking magic. These four guys that I held in reverence were standing there in front of me, five feet in front of me, practically in touching distance. I remember the tension and excitement in the air... God, it was so thick you could cut it with a knife. And I remember seeing Brett Reed walk along the back of the stage and I looked back at Sarah and we both just grinned, wide-eyed, because we knew who it was. It was Brett. THE BRETT REED. My fucking hero at the time. The reason I believed I could play drums. And there he was, smoking a cigarette as he walked back towards his drumkit. And then... out bounded Tim and Lars and Matt and they launched into Avenues and Alleyways and we all pumped our fists and felt like they were singing directly towards each and every one of us. For months after that show I could name off every song they played... they all meant that much to me. It was a good time for me as a whole. I was young and I believed. I believed in myself and I believed in them and I believed that one day, I'd get out of there and do something worth writing about. Something to make someone else believe.

Then it all went... well, where did it go? Somedays I feel it. I feel it deep seeded in me and I know that it'll get out again. Other days, I just don't know. I don't know about myself and I don't know if I believe anymore.

But lately, I do believe. I know it's deep inside me, itching to get out. I know that I have to get out and leave this year in the past. I lived through it and that's lesson enough for a fucking army. It's in me and it's gonna get out again. I'm gonna make someone else believe... someday.

"With the music execution and the talk of revolution, it bleeds in me." Lars Frederiksen in "Roots Radicals".