Golden

During my junior and senior years in high school, I spent nearly every Friday and Saturday night going out to see local bands play. There were three or four that we'd see just about anywhere they played, even a three-stoplight town in BFE called Bridgeport, Illinois that was more than an hour away from home. This was long before MySpace, so shows were advertised by word of mouth and with fliers. Even though I took piano lessons from age 7 on, I think my bone-deep love of music really got started at those shows.

By the time my freshman year in college was underway, all of the main bands had split up. We went to a few shows here and there, but it never was the same. That perfect confluence of music, company, and atmosphere was gone, and we knew even then that we'd never really find it again. I have mourned it at times, even though I've never been one to moon over the good old days or to live life as if high school was the apex of my social existence.

I ran into the guitarist from one of those bands tonight at Starbucks, where he took my order and then squinted at my face and said, "Do I know you from somewhere?" I told him the name of his old band, and that I used to go to all the shows. We chatted about people from the old days. His drummer moved to Nashville three years ago. The bass player toured with a nationally-known band as a merchandiser. The manager now runs his own marketing firm. The singer married the lead singer of another local band, had a baby, and moved to one of the Carolinas. We talked about how we just can't go to shows anymore. We're too old, the kids are too young, and the music just isn't that good.

Driving home, it hit me how horrified the girl I was would be if she saw the grown-ass woman I am now. My uniform is jeans and long-sleeved T-shirts instead of skater pants, tank tops, and little bitty tees. I work 40 hours a week on salary, spend a lot of time behind a desk, and claim chai lattes and chocolate as vices instead of clove cigarettes and late, late nights. I'm a walking cliché with my SUV, big house, marriage, and aspirations of having two happy, well-adjusted kids. What would she see, if she met me now? A sellout, maybe. A conformist. But I see her, and I know she's a part of me, and she always will be. I can still listen to music through her ears, feel the love of it in the marrow of my bones. Those days of shows and knowing all the bands and being part of a scene were golden, but so is this, here, today.