I’m a good two decades past my adolescence. I’m a Nineties girl. My formative years. I’m not sure I’d say my coming-of-age years as I feel like I’m becoming more myself every year; with each day. But none of that matters because the Nineties is where my teenage angst and curiosity laid the foundation for my twentysomething nonsense and adventure. Remarkable life chapters of fuck-ups, step-ups, hiccups, show-ups and break-ups.

That was twenty plus years ago.

Yet it feels like it was just yesterday when I bought the Dookie album, and a few years after, my new friends introduced me to punk, and some guy handed me Enema of the State. That same dude became one of my bests and recited a favourite poet of mine on my wedding day a quarter century later.

I am 41 years old, and nostalgia is burning bright in my soul. A reel of memories floods my mind, and a set list of punk in all its many forms plays silently on repeat. It is a compilation of delinquent, thrashing, edgy, poppy, and devastatingly heartbreaking mix tapes that have become an essential collection of lyrics that make up the soundtrack of my life.

Melancholic melodies that molded me, moved me, and masqueraded me. Songs that romanticized living on front porches and swinging life away. Of saving the day.

And now here I am, traveling to Las Vegas with my uni flatmate and dear friend to rock out to the When We Were Young Festival to bands that remind me of hurt and hope, escape and embrace, mosh pits and mistakes.

The festival was a surreal throwback, a living memory, a time capsule, a love letter to my past, a scrapbook of scars, a bedlam of music mayhem that left me reminiscing about when I was young. A carefree creative who loved discovering pop culture and dancing front row.

Falling in love with life at a rock show.

In a sense, everything has stayed the same since those dookie days, yet everything has changed. A song ends, years pass, and I can start seeing the wrinkles form on my face. The undercurrent of sadness as I patiently wait to become a mother.

Then Self Esteems plays and for approximately three minutes I’m distracted. Forgetting the present and going back to the pink palace where the kids were alright.

Memories fade, and good old days disappear further into the review mirror. But when the music plays, it all comes rushing back. Some good, some great, and some just not even worth remembering.

So, here I am, flying to the desert with the realization that all of this – the perseverance, the resiliency, the grief, the loss, the joy, the success, the anger, the laughter, the love and the leaving (even the returning) – is about growing up.

Growing old.
Growing wise.
Growing apart.
Growing close.

Songs don’t age. But I do. Yet I believe I’m never too old to do the things I love to do, want to do, or am afraid to do.

And I can revisit my youth. My roots. I’m still relevant. Still cool. Pretty fly. Society tells me to act my age, but it’s time to let loose, let go and forget for a few days what my age is again.

Because I’m going old school, I’ve dusted off my CDs and cassette tapes, each one a nostalgic nod to who I once was. I don’t miss those years, but I’m fond of them, for they’ve shaped the heartbeats of the person I’ve become, like sepia-stained photographs in an album, each one holding a story to tell.

It was the time of my life. It still is. All the small things that have made up this grand existence of mine. An epic dance party. No regrets save all the forgets.

Now here I am – approaching middle age and high-fiving that eighteen-year-old girl from yesteryear. The girl who quietly found herself fascinated by anthropology outside of the mainstream. The curious writer who wrote lyrics and stuffed them in her journal. The girl who crowd surfed and never felt more alive. The girl who wanted to be a writer. The girl who got distracted, drifted away and explored new things.

The girl who grew up and became me.

A song from my youth plays and I am taken back. As I listen to the bridge, I see that young girl riding her bicycle as that transformative summer ends. She thinks time will stand still. But it doesn’t. I linger in thought, reflecting, I can see who I am now. Where I am now. A compilation of songs. Surrounded by many of the people from those cherished life chapters; connected by the same music. The bands we bonded over. Stayed up all night philosophizing with one another. Dissecting the lyrics. Unknowingly falling in love well before the mixed tape was made.

I promise never to forget this moment. Even if I was to forget all it’ll take is the first chords or a chorus to pull a memory from the darkness. When the Fender guitar strings rumble through the radio that’s the space between where I meet my eighteen-year-old self. She hands me paper and pen, encouraging me to write. To buy the festival tickets. To take a weekend off. To get on a plane. And fly away.

I appreciate it when my younger self visits me through reflection and reverence. I still relate to her. I want to do right by her. Honour her. Be inspired by her. Tell her that it wasn’t all for naught. That she knew it all along, even when she doubted where she was going or who she was loving.

She got me here. Twenty years later. Ready to publish words. Ready to crank the volume high. Ready to rock out and rock on.

Life is gritty and glamorous; gloomy and gorgeous, filled with green days, yellow cards, plain white tees, simple plans, goldfingers, offsprings, new found glories and saves the days. But I’m here for it. 182 blinks of it. One more time until it is the last time.

It fascinates me how 80,000 strangers can have a few things in common: nostalgia and music. The appeal of multigenerational bands. For some, it is childhood rewind; for others, it is the retro tracks their parents played, telling stories about when they were young. Regardless of the emotion or the reason, the festival grounds just off the strip were lit up with a sentiment that pop punk isn’t dead. That it has always been alive. That I can rock out regardless of my age or how I came to fall in love with a lyric, a ballad.

With the time of my life.

And it was something unpredictable, but in the end, it was right.

Because when I’m standing in the open air on the edges of the desert, my heart and memory are warmed (or panged) by the gentle embrace of a melody, nostalgia weaving its timeless magic, carrying me through the years of music to moments long past. As one of the musicians said when he looked out at the crowd – it so good to be here. It’s almost as if we had forgotten. That we needed to be reminded. That music is powerfully moving and healing. And that the music of our youth is what humbles us as adults.

As the sun sets and the mosh pits rise against a pyrotechnic sky, the ghosts of my adolescence and twentysomething heartbreaks reverb deep from within. I realize that each song has been part of a journey of self-discovery, where the chapters of my youth slowly evolve into an adventure of my own making.

As I journaled these words wearied after a red eye flight, I can’t help but wonder that this may be the stage in my story where life comes full circle. In all the ways, I guess this really is growing up.

Mad love, Nicxo