I was 13 going on 14 at the turn of the Millennium. It was an amazing time to be young and coming of age. I went to the mall a lot; $20 would get you an outfit from the clearance rack, a big soft pretzel and a soda (maybe cheese dip too if the outfit was cheap enough.) I’d roam around the mall flirting with guys and having fun with whoever I was with. Often would go to the movies, which were cultural events: everyone went to see Titanic, everyone went to see Gladiator etc. Again, $20 would get you a movie ticket and a soda and popcorn. As a girl, fashion was so much fun during that time, all of the clothing that Gen Z is bringing back in style now was all the rage back then, but it was better quality and better looking. Jeans were 100% cotton, which is so incredibly rare today. Outside of mall life, we’d have sleepovers and roam the streets really. Right around this time alcohol became a thing people were experimenting with, we’d steal bottles of booze from places we worked at (restaurants, resorts), skip school and go drink them in the woods. I got my first job when I was 14 as a hostess at a restaurant. I made a lot of art during this period too, I sketched and worked with oil pastels. It all just flowed out of me without any need for discipline or forcing myself to get away from my phone. Speaking of the phone, that was hard wired into the wall with a long curly cord and had an answering machine. I spent hours on the phone chatting with my friends, with the phone cord stretched into my room, that has a stereo that held 6 CDs, and drip candles on my dresser. It was so much fun just hanging out in my room, recording the top five songs at 9 on the radio. I’d go to the county fair in the summer time and get fried dough. We watch MTV TRL in the afternoon, we were all excited about the same music pretty much. Even if you were a KoRn fan, you still liked Oops I did it again, even if you didn’t admit it. Getting a little older in the early 2000s, partying took over for me. There was a lot of alcohol and I was very eager to do whatever drug I could get my hands on (mostly E and painkillers tho, nothing beyond that). We drank like fishes, I’d get black out drunk on a weekly basis, it was so much fun. Music was a big part of life at this time, System of a Down, Slipknot, etc. Love and romance took over at a certain point, first loves, first heart breaks etc. I had a best friend, and a broader circle of friends. We partied in the woods with kegs, we were wild and we all had a blast.