shakespeareandpunk:

today, on the day of his birth, let’s just talk about the trajectory of pete wentz’s adult life because sometimes I sit around and think about not accomplishing anything and dying and being sad but then I think about pete wentz and I feel okay. 

pete wentz is a mixed-race child of a midwestern suburban family who struggled desperately with mental illness his entire life. more than ten years ago he sat in his car in the parking lot of a best buy and attempted suicide but at the last minute called for help. and then he wrote a song about it. and then he wrote an album about it. and now he’s 36 years old with two beautiful children playing music with his best friends. 

in between all of that he did a lot of other things. as a teenager/young adult he was in multiple punk and hardcore bands that made him very well-known in the chicago hardcore scene. he started fall out boy as a way to have fun with music and talk about his feelings outside of the boundaries of that scene. he met patrick stump, which I assume he counts as a monumental event in his life and thus I am including it in this list. he wrote an album self-mythologizing fall out boy’s fame before they had their first radio hit. he started his own fashion line (yes, this dude) that partnered with DKNY. he published two books. he started his own record label and signed some of the biggest bands of the mid-to-late 2000s. he opened a bar in 3 major US cities just so he could hang out with his friends no matter what coast he was on. 

pete wentz worked very hard to manufacture and brand himself and he’s great at it. he knows how to sell an image and he knows how to do it even though his life and his mental health are falling apart. pete wentz had a very public marriage fall apart. pete wentz had half the people he grew up with turn their backs on him. pete wentz had a person he trusted leak personal pictures of him and the next day he showed up on TRL to make a joke out of it. pete wentz started a social networking site before facebook blew up. pete wentz designed and orchestrated a major political media campaign. pete wentz had his art shown at an art gallery in LA. pete wentz guest-starred on CSI and had a multi-episode arc on One Tree Hill. pete wentz has worked publicly and diligently with multiple charities. he attended rallies to protest against prop 8. he has written music for bands, movie soundtracks, and friends. He’s written comic books, designed action figures, and hosted a tv show on a major network. He owns his own production company with which he has made 2 short films and released one dvd. He was in the Degrassi movie, he did a guest appearance on Californication. He directed a music video for Train. 

pete wentz is bipolar and was one of the first major public figures to ever talk about it publicly. pete wentz tweets his best friend every year for his birthday and writes blog posts for his fans. pete wentz writes songs for his fans and songs for his friends and songs for himself and who he used to be a decade ago in that best buy parking lot. pete wentz is 36 years old and there was probably a point in time, very likely when he was about my age, when he never thought he would be 36. everything on this list he did in between the lines of 24 and 36. pete wentz was a sad kid from chicago and this year he inducted green day into the rock and roll hall of fame. pete wentz is in a band with his best friends and has two beautiful children and he’s not nearly as sad as he used to be and I hope he is having a very good birthday and eating a whole entire pizza with the people he loves.