I’m going to depart from my ‘Celebrating 90’ posts for a minute and talk about being a teenager again. In the last year or so I’ve been fortunate enough to attend some amazing concerts and sort of ‘relive’ my teenage years. Growing up in a small town didn’t give us teens many opportunities to see the big bands of the 80’s (yes I’m dating myself a bit)! In order to see the latest and greatest rock acts you had to travel mainly to Salt Lake City or maybe Boise, Idaho. Mega-popular groups didn’t come to the sticks in Southern Idaho!
The concerts I really wanted to attend, I’ve had to see as an adult, which means those rockers are also older and therefore the experiences are a little bit different. The funny thing is though that when I go see Duran Duran or Def Leppard or The Police, I still feel like a teenager. In fact, most days, at least in my mind, I’m not some forty-something year old, overweight, tired mom but a young, skinny, cute eighteen year old. I feel young in my head if not in my body! I still get that thrill when a band comes out on the stage and plays my favorite song! I still scream and yell and dance and head-bang just like in the 80’s, except the next morning I’m paying for it in aches, pains, creaks and cracks (but hey, those bands are even older than I am, so imagine their pain)!
Some of my fellow concert goers must feel the same way, because many of them are gyrating about as if they were 15 years old and high on hormones; that is until they collapse in a heap on their seat or maybe they’re just high on something else, hmmm? I have also noticed that every time I go to a concert and look around at my fellow concert-goers I think, ‘man these people are old, what are they doing at THIS concert?’ and then I realize that they are all about the same age as me! Then I get a little depressed, reality sets in and the illusion of me being a teenager goes ‘poof’! I still have a great time though and my philosophy is better late than never! I may not actually be a teenager but I can still have fun like one (in moderation)!
Eighteen year old me. I still feel like this in my head.
Always stay young at heart, Tina, it will keep you young on the outside too!