Black on the Inside

The other night, my husband was casually flipping the channels on TV when we came across a Nirvana concert live from England’s Reading Festival in 1994. For a short time, I forgot Kurt Cobain existed. But in high school, he was one of my favorite musicians – mine and about every other kid in school. Then I realized it – Wow! 1994? 

“Sean, has it really been 15 years since Kurt Cobain died?” I asked my husband. “Was it really that long since I graduated high school?”

“Yep, it was,” he replied as he lay on the couch, totally unconcerned that this much time has already elapsed.

I am 33-year-old now, yikes. It seems like it was only five years ago when music was the center of my universe and I was a high school senior. My days after school consisted of locking myself in my bedroom and listening to my CDs. I would spend hours listening to the same albums over and over again. Black clothes and heavy eye make up were part of my uniform. “I wear black on the outside, because black is how I feel on the inside,” were words to live by I thought, as Morrissey sang in The Smiths “Unlovable.” I was busy being gloomy and unsatisfied by everything in my life. That was just the '90s way of life for my generation. 

By the time I graduated college, I still wore a lot of black clothes. My dark eye make-up was a part of me as well. As in high school, I still coveted The Smiths, Nirvana, and other alt-rock bands like The Pixies and Jane’s Addiction. My friends and I started driving to Philadelphia to see shows. “Rock n’ roll or die,” was our mantra. A day off work with no pay was so worth it when it came to seeing a live show. Once, we went to Philadelphia three times in a week to see Jane’s Addiction, The Breeders, and Weezer. 

And now, I sit here on the couch wondering what happened? My life went from “rock n’ roll or die” to work, worrying about paying a mortgage, and planning for the birth of our child in February. I feel like David Byrne in the Talking Heads song “Once in a Lifetime.” “You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. You may find yourself in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife. You may ask yourself: Well, how did I get here?”

My closet is no longer a sea of black. I even own a hot pink sweater now, a bright shade I would’ve never dreamed of purchasing 15 years ago. I no longer take the extra 20 minutes a day to put three thick layers of eyeliner on. Rather, I wear one thin layer and a neutral eye shadow with no mascara. 

I may have made some wardrobe changes, but I still bust out a Nirvana CD once in a while or watch old Smiths shows on YouTube. And I still feel black on the inside.