When asked, “What do you carry?” The first item that comes to mind is my headphones. It is something that when I leave my home without them, I know it's going to be a bad day. I’m always using them. They are an essential part of a routine that I have systematically built to my own standards throughout my life. Music takes me to a place where I am at peace, it calms me when I am stressed, and gives me serotonin. Music always puts me in the right state of mind. When I'm listening to music and “Hooked on a Feeling” by Blue Swede comes on, it reminds me of the day I hung out with the people I now call my best friends. It was a cold March, March 8th I believe, and we were going to see a movie. Something that brought us all together was that we all enjoyed Marvel movies, so it only fitting that we were going to see Captain Marvel. This group was composed of some of my best friends since 4th grade, but then we also invited some of our other friends. It was people I knew but had never hung out with before. I was feeling so excited because not only was I with new friends, but my friends and I have been waiting for this movie to come out for a whole year. The anticipation of introducing a new hero was exciting, and a new storyline was something we were dying to dig into. With Marvel movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, all of the movies tie together. All of the people exist in the same world around the same time and it’s always the same characters  in different movies. So when there are parts of a movie that don’t make sense or it has loose ends, when you see the other movies, the missing pieces start to tie together. When I told my mom I was going to hang out with friends, and some of them were new friends, she formed the biggest smile, as she was happy for me because I am not one to frequently hang out with friends. When I was leaving, I thought maybe this is a new beginning. Mixing old friends with new people, maybe could lead to me  spending more time with people outside my comfort zone. The years and months before this, I had a group of people I was friends with, and they were great people, but they weren't my type. We had very different interests and personalities, and that was okay, it just didn’t work out for me. This was a time I used my headphones a lot. I would use them when I was walking in the hallways so I looked less alone like I wanted to be alone. After all, sometimes I would have no one to walk with, which was okay with me because sometimes I thought it was okay to be alone. Driving to the movie theater, I thought about how if this works, I could have best friends again. It had to work. We enjoyed the same things, our personalities were similar, and since we knew each other, all of the super awkward stuff was already knocked out of the way. I arrived at the movie theater and scurried inside, some of them were already inside waiting in the lobby. I walked over to them and started talking with one of my friends that I already knew. We talked about how we were excited for the movie and what we thought was going to happen, and I could tell that she was excited to be here too; hopeful of the formation of a new group. The last few shuffled in and we made our way to the theater. When we sat down, we took up almost half a row (MJR seats are pretty large though), I looked right, then left, and saw everyone talking so I talked too. I don’t quite remember what, but we talked through the credits, and talked until the lights dimmed. It was finally the moment I had been waiting for, what we had been waiting for. The movie was happening, characters were introduced, loose ends tied, and when it was over we left,  I said, “That was pretty bad,” and everyone agreed. I hated that movie, and pretty much everyone else did too.  I drove a few friends back to one of our friend’s houses and while driving, all of a sudden, “Hooked on a Feeling” came on, which is in one of the other MCU movies, so we all knew it. We sang together and some moved around in their seats “dancing (?)”. It was the best feeling, a feeling of a new friendship. I no longer had to wear my headphones in the hallway as I barely walked alone. I have people in my life that I created new connections with that still are with me today.  Carrying my headphones more than just listening to music, brings memories, and provides comfort and the feeling of safety. That’s why I carry them with me.