Whenever I hear Pearl Jam’s Black, it makes me think of being 17 years old and going obsessive compulsive on a jukebox at Rack’em Up Billiards in Oakdale, Minnesota.

My high school boyfriend had just dumped me because as the saying goes, “Cheaters never prosper.” I wanted him back so badly. I had tried everything including begging and praying to a Billabong sweatshirt he left at my house. When neither of those worked, I followed him home from school, convinced him to let me into his house, held a handful of steak knives I found in his kitchen to my arm and then fell to the ground and had a panic attack. Surprisingly, this romantic gesture didn’t work either. He was done with me and in my teenage angst; I thought that meant that life was officially done with me as well.

An hour later, after he had kicked…