The date was Thursday, May 15th, 2025, and I was on Amtrak to Philadelphia. The trip had been planned, but I would’ve been out of there either way — to Philly, Massachusetts, Delaware or Vermont, I didn’t care. All I knew was that I had to get the hell out of New York. It didn’t take long after departing from Penn Station for the warm tears to start welling up, the stale recycled air coldly brushing my exposed skin that I struggled to cover with my tote bag and sleeves that didn’t stretch quite far enough.

It happens more often on planes than trains, but apparently it’s common for emotions to heighten when you’re a passenger on a moving vehicle. Maybe it has something to do with the helplessness and powerlessness that comes with being in motion you have no control over — coupled, of course, with everything else.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. Let’s just say something in my life had come to an abrupt and unexpected end, and it left me reeling. It felt like the kind of moment that fractures your sense of reality — where even the things that once seemed solid or promising dissolve into uncertainty.

I found myself with more questions than answers. And with no idea how to begin looking for them, I went to the one place I always go when I’m trying to process the unprocessable — my music library. I scrolled through old playlist archives looking for something that matched the headspace I was in. Sad 20th-century country. Murder ballads. Or, to quote my favorite line from 10 Things I Hate About You, angry girl music of the indie rock persuasion.

Then, I remembered an image I saw a month earlier at Brooklyn Paramount. In between sets, I found myself staring at one of several jumbotrons where the venue advertised future events. One of them was the 10-year anniversary tour of Peripheral Vision, the sophomore record by Virginia Beach emo-revival-turned-dreampop band Turnover. The tour art included the elusive album cover — a washed-out monochromatic photo of a woman standing between foliage, looking at the camera with a thousand-yard stare under a cracked frame. Much like the tone of the album, she’s right there and yet completely out of reach.

Turnover is a strange and beautiful anomaly. They emerged just in time to catch the runoff of the 2010s emo revival before they ditched the double-time pop punk formula and fully embraced a more vibey dreampop sound, which ultimately led to their breakthrough. I call it the Carly Rae Jepsen paradox, when an artist’s trajectory and target audience are all but impossible to pin down. Turnover is equally beloved by hardcore dudes in vintage Bad Brains t-shirts and the Tumblr-raised romantics of the 2010s. I would put them in the same camp as bands like Tigers Jaw, Joyce Manor, Title Fight, Modern Baseball and Citizen — whose 2013 album Youth was also inescapable in the aforementioned 2010s Tumblr shuffle and Run For Cover Records renaissance – but Turnover also transcends that niche, sitting somewhere between their emo revival roots and the dreamy ambiance of a bleary-eyed house party.

Back on the train, with an hour and a half to kill, that haunting cover art popped up again in my library. It was one of maybe seven records I had downloaded — my service had completely cut out — but I didn’t mind. The reminder of it being 10 years since the album’s release was enough to prompt a revisit. I queued up the opening track, “Cutting My Fingers Off,” and let the ambient guitar feedback wash over me, wringing out another set of tears. The lyrics pore over memories of a past relationship, stirred by the discovery of an old photograph:

I found the picture that we took when we brought in the new year 

It’s hard to see but I remember

You wore a cocktail dress

Ignored the goosebumps on your neck 

The namesake of your outfit to keep you warm

The song eventually builds up to an explosive guitar supernova. Lead singer Austin Getz’s composed, even-tempered vocals from the start are abandoned for an agonizing, guttural delivery of the final lines. It’s not just poetic — it’s surgical, precise, and brutal.

And every dream I’ve ever had’s been of a
Better view with a ten month summer
Losing you is like cutting my fingers off
And even with that summer
Without you I’d rather cut my fingers off

What makes this type of album opener so compelling is the fact that there’s no prelude to the heartbreak — the first thing we hear is the unfettered torment and anguish of the narrator as we experience these subconscious memories of an old relationship flooding back to him. The calm composure from the beginning of the song is nowhere to be found, leaving the listener with the sound of pure anger. It’s the album equivalent of a TV show working backwards — opening at the dramatic climax before cutting to “20 days earlier” so the viewer can understand everything leading up to that point. 

Of all the songs on Peripheral Vision, I’d never understood why the band decided to open the album with “Cutting My Fingers Off.” But as I left town trying to piece together the aftermath of my first real adult breakup — one that completely blindsided me — I finally got it. The song mirrors the very emotions I was grappling with. When it happened, I’d dealt with it rationally enough and kept my composure through all of the back and forth. But then I found myself caught between keeping my cool and privately seething with rage.

“Take My Head,” the most high-energy cut on the album and the one song you’re most likely to see a pit form around at their shows, is another song that perfectly taps into that rage. The self-destructive urges are anything but subtle at this point, and the narrator wants the listener to know it. Breaking things and punching a hole in the drywall isn’t enough — the only way he will reach catharsis is by smashing his own skull to smithereens. 

Cut my brain into hemispheres

I wanna smash my face 

Till it’s nothing but ears

I wanna paint my drain 

With a little red stain tonight

I would never subject myself to that level of self-inflicted violence, but I’d be lying if I said the urge didn’t cross my mind from time to time. There’s a particular kind of frustration that comes from not knowing what went wrong — not because you weren’t paying attention, but because the clarity you’re desperate for just never arrives. It’s like shouting into a canyon and waiting for an echo that never comes. You start to question not just what happened, but whether any part of it was real to begin with.

The one song I kept on a constant loop during the ride was the closing track, “Intrapersonal.” The bright plucking of the reverb-drenched guitar triggered yet another wave of salty tears as I huddled in my seat, surrounded by the scent of worn leather as I munched on the world’s driest grilled cheese. There’s nothing quite like a sad song in E major to send me over the edge. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the lyrics to the refrain. Getz is doing everything possible to prevent his true feelings from coming to the surface, and here I was crying in public. 

There’s a fever burning up in me

I’m tangled up inside a sinking feeling

Slipping out of touch with the controls 

It’s all intrapersonal 

It’s now been a few weeks since the breakup and my trip to Philly and I find myself gravitating to the penultimate track “I Would Hate You If I Could” the most — not just because I relate to every word, but because it captures that liminal space between hurt and healing. That weird post-everything state where you’re not sure whether you’re grieving or just relieved that something is finally over. When you’re unsure if you’re getting better or becoming numb to the ache. The repeated closing line starts to sound progressively more defeated as Getz chants it like a mantra until the song fades out.

I would hate you, but I’m not finished yet

I would hate you, but I’m not finished yet

I would hate you, but I’m not finished yet 

As I write this, I feel… not okay, but not distraught either. The sharp edges of the pain have dulled, and I’m realizing that maybe the experience I was mourning wasn’t quite as great as I’d convinced myself it was. There’s still a lingering ache, sure. There always is. But I’m starting to see clearly again, even if just in flashes.

I did end up going to that anniversary tour stop in Brooklyn. It was the first of two sold out nights and one of the most packed houses for an indie act I’d ever seen in my life — and that’s saying a lot for someone who was just at the MJ Lenderman Franklin Music Hall show a month ago. I stood atop the balcony, a margarita in hand that I’m pretty sure was just 12 OZ of straight tequila with a splash of watermelon. The minute they took the stage and opened the set with “Cutting My Fingers Off,” I unleashed a torrent of inebriated teenage passion, like that scene in Overcompensating when Mary Beth Barone belts “Welcome to the Black Parade” at karaoke. 

The band was barely visible, obscured by the harsh and ever changing stage lighting, but their voices were clear as day. In between songs, Getz expressed an unwavering gratitude for the pure adoration the album has received over the years, how they “never could have imagined” it would reach as far and wide as it did when they wrote it over a decade ago. People still approach him every day to express how instrumental the album was in helping them navigate their most difficult life circumstances, be it a breakup, an unexpected tragedy, or simply going through puberty and not knowing whether or not they’ll make it out the other side — most of us do, but what nobody tells you about teenage emotions when you’re in the thick of it is that they never really go away. And that’s what makes Peripheral Vision stand the test of time.

What’s so beautiful about music is the way fandom can transcend the circumstances that produced it. I don’t think Getz ever second guessed touring a breakup album despite now being happily married, because so much time has passed and fans have connected with it on such a deep level to the point where I doubt he even thinks about the state he was in when he wrote it anymore. This album has helped me through so many difficult stages in my life — this breakup was certainly not the first, nor will it be the last — and thank god for that.  

A big thing I’ve learned throughout my 26 years of living on this planet is that healing doesn’t look linear. Sometimes it’s obsessively analyzing an album from a decade ago as you attempt to piece together your own story hidden in someone else’s lyrics. Sometimes it looks like petty thoughts you don’t act on, tear stains on public transit you don’t try to hide, or moments of clarity that come just long enough to get you through the day. I’m not finished yet. But I’m getting there.