We were born the year Nirvana’s Nevermind was released to the world. It’s fitting, then, that as we grew into teenagers we personified the angst and dissonance of the album. Though, I suppose a teenager’s troubled and confused plight is the same in any decade. We, however, are teenagers of a new millennium. As children of the 90’s, we are the last generation to remember the world before texting, sexting, celebreality, and Paris Hilton. As jaded as we have become, we remember Slip ‘N’ Slides, Nerf Guns, and simply playing pretend.

As much as I would have liked it to, innocence has not stayed with us. This was clear as the summer of 2009 burned on. We sat around bonfires, on porches, and in expensive homes, gulping down our parents’ expensive vodka, smoking cigarettes and our brothers’ cigars, and inhaling summer smoke(tobacco, marijuana, or otherwise.) As we drank, we were kids playing at maturity. Strangely, too much consumption of alcohol turned us into children once more. We stumbled, fell, and whined at scraped knees. We were recklessly blunt with our words, Smirnoff’s hand working wonders to draw out the terrible honesty within us, honesties we worked hard throughout the school year to conceal. Seven-year old girls throw tantrums when they don’t get the toys they want. Seventeen-year old girls throw tantrums when they don’t get the boys they want. It’s all the same to me. Every night for 80 days, I attended these parties and observed. I can’t plead innocence and say I did not partake in these clandestine activities. I have done things I’m not proud of, but that I certainly don’t regret. Bottom line: we’re young, it’s summer, anything goes.