Twilight Soundtracked My Teen Angst

If there was a poster child for teen angst in the late 2000s and early 2010s, it would have been Twilight. If Harry Potter was the defining era of my childhood, Twilight was the defining era of my adolescence. From 2008 to 2012, the films had a hold on tweens and teens everywhere, whether they loved the saga or loved to hate it. And I was a part of the first group.

For Twihards, as us fans were called, our love for the saga didn't just stem from a love of bad cinema, but from a love of melodrama, dark aesthetics, and the adrenaline rush that comes from flirting with danger. All things that basically sum up the teen culture of that era.

Part of what made Twilight great, beyond how well it captured the extra-ness that is being a teenager, is the music that accompanied it. Every soundtrack from the films understood exactly what was needed and to this day, turn me into an emotional wreck. At 25 years old, I realize that the music from these movies aren't just good because of how well they tell the story of Bella and Edward's lives, but they're great because of how well they tell the story of my life. And for that reason, these movie soundtracks still have a special place in my heart.

Twilight (2008)

When the first Twilight movie came out, I was ten years old but already had a head start on my angsty teen years, which I attribute to having three older sisters and my love of Disney Channel and teen magazines (which is ironically where I first heard about Twilight). When I sat in my bedroom reading Popstar magazine, photos from the filming of this new movie caught my eye when I recognized Cedric Diggory from Harry Potter as the male lead. That same week, when I walked into school, a handful of students were carrying these books with a bright red apple on the front and fantasizing about having a vampire boyfriend.

The movies became a big part of my preteen and early teen years, but the soundtrack of that first movie was unmatched and it seemed that the songwriters knew me personally. Around the time the film premiered, my grandfather died and though I was old enough at that point to know that everyone dies eventually, it wasn't real to me until I was attending his funeral and watching him being lowered into the ground. The heaviness that came with realizing that everyone around me were just hourglasses that could run out of sand at any moment, always pointed me to track 4: "Leave Out All The Rest" by Linkin Park.

When my time comes

Forget the wrong that I've done

Help me leave behind some reasons to be missed

And don't resent me

And when you're feeling empty

Keep me in your memory

My transition from childhood to adolescence also put a strain on me and my parents' relationship, particularly with my mom. Our relationship, that had once consisted of her babying me and me sticking by her side every chance I got, was now full of tension because her west African baby boomer ideals didn't fit into my American zillenial world. Cue the cliche of "you don't understand me, Mom!" but that was genuinely how it felt. Thankfully, Twilight had a song for that too. Track 2: "Decode" by Paramore.

How can I decide what's right?

When you're clouding up my mind

I can't win your losing fight

All the time

...

How did we get here

When I used to know you so well?

The Twilight soundtrack even had a song for when my family and I moved to a new house in the middle of the school year. After laying awake in my bedroom at night for weeks straight, feeling like I was sleeping in a stranger's bed because of the still unfamiliar walls around me, track 12 gave me the slumber I was in desperate need of: "Bella's Lullaby."

The soft piano sounds with the dark undertones lulled me to sleep many nights and often resulted in some vivid dreams involving paranormal creatures.

New Moon (2009)

A new moon represents a new start and when this movie came out, it felt like a fitting title for the new phase of my life. I was in middle school then, having gone from a world of playing kickball and four square at recess to a world filled with lockers, menstrual cycles, romantic relationships, and sex education. This new phase of my life also marked my first time dealing with mental health issues, making this movie even more important to me.

In the scene when Bella is sitting in front of her bedroom window, watching as the months go by after Edward leaves, it was the first time I felt like someone understood the emptiness I felt. "Depression" was like a taboo word in my house at that time so I didn't fully understand what was going on with me. Watching Bella lose interest in the things that once brought her joy, like her friends and music, made me realize that I was also just watching the world pass me by without being able to care. The song that played during that scene became one that I would often lay on my bed listening to. Track 4: "Possibility" by Lykke Li.

So tell me when you hear my heart stop

You're the only one that knows

Tell me when you hear my silence

There's a possibility I wouldn't know

Even though my depression wasn't triggered by a boyfriend leaving me, the feeling of deep sadness in the song and the idea that we could just fade away without even realizing it ourselves, said all of the things that I couldn't in those moments.

Eclipse (2010)

This movie came out when I was in seventh grade and if you don't know, seventh grade is hard. If I could describe it, it's like the junior year of middle school. Classes become harder, there's more pressure to make decisions, and everyone seems to be experimenting to find themselves.

As my classmates began experimenting with scene and emo fashion, cigarettes, and tongue kissing (which resulted in a few cases of mono), I was on my own journey of self discovery. It involved developing a new affinity for cussing, wearing different colored shoe laces on each of my shoes, and going through a brief stint of straightening my hair.

It was also the year that I was accepted into an accelerated learning program. Although I had a lot to be proud of, this became my first introduction to an unwanted guest I've been dealing with since then, known as imposter syndrome. That was when I turned to track 8: "Rolling In On a Burning Tire" by The Dead Weather.

And the days will come and go

And the band will march along

'Til the day you cast a shadow

And it's nothing like your own

In those days, it really did feel like I was casting a shadow that was nothing like my own. And though I wanted to feel like myself again, I first had to figure out who I was.

Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011)

In 2011, the fact that Bella and Edward were toxic as hell was not as widely known or accepted as it is now. Back then, to many teenagers, they were couple goals and our excitement at seeing their wedding scene was evidence enough to how naive we were. A couple of years after this movie came out, I got my first official boyfriend when I was sixteen and just like how Bella was for Edward, I was head over heels in love with him and about as codependent as they come. Which made it all the more ironic when our special song became track 6: "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri.

I have died everyday waiting for you

Darling don't be afraid I have loved you

For a thousand years

I'll love you for a thousand more

Just like many of Bella's loved ones, my sisters and friends tried to tell me that our relationship was not healthy, but like Bella, I was convinced that they just didn't understand our love.

Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012)

I was fourteen and had just started high school when the fifth and final Twilight movie came out and though the series wrapped up with a happily ever after, the world around me was starting to feel more hopeless than ever.

That same year, the news of Trayvon Martin's death was everywhere. He was a boy just three years older than me who had been killed for doing nothing more than walking home with a hoodie on, like I had done on many occasions. While many people in my age group note that incident as what radicalized them, for me, my radicalization didn't happen until I was eighteen.

Instead of it fueling me to fight for radical change, Trayvon Martin's death resulted in a deep melancholy and a feeling that the world hadn't made as much progress as I once believed. And at fourteen, I didn't feel like I could do anything to change it. Track 1 became my go to: "Where I Come From" by Passion Pit.

Where I come from

You say things will be well and fun

Though the world around you is crumbling

And the truth bleak as a bee

The song ends with the words "I think we'll be alright" and whenever I listen to it, I can't help but wonder if the songwriter actually believed that things would be alright or if they had to say it just to keep going. In 2012, a lot of my life consisted of me just trying to trick myself into surviving so I convinced myself that maybe the writer of that song was in the same boat as me.

Not only did Trayvon Martin's death have a big impact on me, but 2012 was also the year that my family and I moved from the city I had lived in my whole life to an entirely different state where the only person we knew was my estranged aunt. Those first few months when I had no friends and was forced to live in a cramped apartment with too many people while my parents were searching for jobs and a better place to stay, was the loneliest I had ever felt. It really did feel like my world was crumbling but I couldn't speak it out loud. But just like it had since 2008, Twilight and its music came through for me.

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I guess you could say that I owe a lot to Twilight. It got me through some of the toughest years of my life and despite being an adult now and realizing that it wasn't exactly the cinematic masterpiece I thought it was when I was a teenager, the movies and the music will always remind me of simpler times.

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Thanks for reading!

-Chanté