I know we are all supposed to hate our middle school selves and just middle school in general, but to be honest… I secretly miss it. Of course, I was weird—everyone and everything was. I wore jeans that just didn’t fit right and a mixture of corny graphic tees from Hot Topic and shirts my mom bought me from Hollister (the trendiest of teen stores, according to her).

I was made fun of in the locker room because my shorts were too long, I had never had a boyfriend and in general my gym class performance was subpar. Everyone was figuring themselves out—we barely qualified as real people.

However, there are so many other things that I look back at and actually smile. Everything was so simple. I spent way too much time on the internet and created a less than favorable digital footprint, but it is what made me happy.

I remember staying up until 2am reading fanfiction and sharing screenshots of chapters that gave me “the feels” (a Tumblr term for thinking something is cute). All that mattered was that I was up in time to sit in the passenger seat of my dad’s truck and blast whatever edgy preteen music I felt like listening to that day.

So I’ll say it—I miss being in middle school. I miss not having a care in the world besides figuring out which bandana I will wear to the 5 Seconds of Summer concert, turning on upload notifications for Dan and Phil on YouTube or counting down the days to when Death of a Bachelor would drop. Here’s a playlist of 20 songs that bring me back to those days, featuring only the cream of the crop preteen-Paige music.