Now I'm bored and old.

It was 1991. I was 12 and into pop music, because that is what the girls liked and I liked girls. The release of Nevermind didn’t change my life immediately; I’d love to say that I was the first on my block to own the album and I was instantly promoted to cultural icon within the teeny town that I lived, but it just wasn’t true. In all fact, by the time we got cable in 1992, Nirvana and Smells Like Teen Spirit, were just another MTV snack – something to munch on for two and a half minutes. As it was served to me, wrapped in ‘Nuthin’ but a G Thang’ and ‘Jump Around,’ there was something discernibly different about the song, but my 12 year old mind didn’t grasp it. I had no idea what Kurt was singing, for the most part, but what I did understand was “With the lights out, it’s less dangerous.” What it was that was less dangerous, I did not know, but I really wanted to know. If it had anything to do with the shucking and jiving cheerleaders adorned with scarlet letters (naïve, sure, but I was a 12 year old in a rural town, pre-internet. My worldview may have been diminished slightly.) then I was in. It didn’t stop with Nirvana, though, Pearl Jam came out with ‘Ten’ and there was Alice in Chains’ ‘Man in the Box.’ It followed as such - MTV took a turn back toward rock and featured what came to be known as ‘grunge.’ I swallowed each of the pills, STP’s ‘Core,’ Soundgarden’s ‘Bad Motorfinger,’ and especially ‘Superunknown.’ It seemed like forever by the time Nirvana released In Utero, and the girl across the street got the CD. I IMMEDIATELY made her tape it for me (I just confessed to piracy. Sorry Kurt, Chris, Dave and DGC.) It was amazing. It blew me away. “Teenage angst has paid off well. Now I’m bored and old.” Or “I tried hard to have a father, but instead I had a dad.” Or countless other lines that Kurt threw together at the last minute before recording his vocals. His last minute musings somehow struck me in a way that no one had been able to at this point. I felt very understood, at a time when NO ONE understood. I felt very connected in a place where I didn’t connect. My love for In Utero made me go back to the previous Nirvana recordings, and I fell in love with those, too. Bleach and Incesticide were just as incredible as the others, I can’t express how many batteries I killed in walkmans listening to these recordings. Beyond all of these, though, Unplugged in New York remains my favorite album of all time. There is a chilling moment at the end of ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night,’ right before Kurt sings the last phrase, he croaks “I’ll shivaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…the whole,” and then he sighs. How much weight is in that sigh? How much fatigue? How much of a sense of failure, even as the most successful musician of his time? “Niiiiiiiiiiiiight throooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.” Kills me. Breaks my heart every time.

Kurt was so much beyond the music. He taught me that my effeminate tendencies were ok. He taught me not to discern race, gender, or sexual preference. These are the lessons that stuck with me. There weren’t a lot of chances for me to fight in high school, I was barely 5 feet and 100 lbs. Even when I was done, I was 5”4’ and 150 – no one really gave me too much trouble. I did get punched, once, and I didn’t hit him back. Kurt was a pacifist, and therefore, so was I. I learned that cardigans were awesome, and I learned the hard way that my hair did not look good when it was long and 6 shades of brown and black (thanks, Clairol.) I learned how to play bass guitar, thanks to Nirvana and bass tabs. Though many of the bands I love came a few years later, I owe Kurt and Nirvana everything. Without them, Punk Rock would likely never have become mainstream. I would not have enjoyed 5 years in a kick-ass punk band, nor would I have met a lot of the people that still mean the world to me today.

I hope someone finds this and it inspires them to grab a Nirvana CD. Kurt would probably have hated how dumbfoundingly popular they are now, and that their t-shirts are available at the mall, but it is my desperate hope that some 14 year old kid sees the t-shirt, likes the design, and downloads a song or two. I hope that they find the feeling of connection that I did. I hope they find the feeling of being understood that I did. I hope it opens them up the way that it opened me up, and I hope the world is a better place for it. It is exactly the kind of universal love that humanity really needs right now.

I hope Kurt is resting, whereever he is. I hope he's obtained the peace he deserves. I hope he no longer sighs with the weight of the world, but with the inner tranquility that he was searching for all those years.