You can do the thing, you're a grownup

On giving yourself permission to or not to

In August in Warsaw, one of my favourite DJs was going to play a set. He is the only musical act I had once considered traveling for to another country, and now that he was in my city I thought about getting the tickets. Except I really don’t like live shows. This is mostly due to the fact that I spent my early 20s working in the legendary Embassy club in London, Ontario before it burned down (I didn’t burn it down) (I wasn’t sad when it burnt down). I saw enough live shows a person should be allowed to see in their lifetime. My favourite was probably Skunk Anansie and The Misfits. Dayglo Abortions had a cool name and a feral fanbase that broke bottles and spraypainted the bathrooms. My boss, a cokehead named Tyson, told me I was a spaz for complaining about getting my ass pinched or boobs grabbed on the regular. I’m telling you all this detail so that you can figure out just how old I am, which is what this post is sort of about.

Anyway, every day in Warsaw in July, I would spot posters announcing Paul Kalkbrenner, whose promoters somehow managed to squeeze in the DJ in between the announcements of the biggest, upcoming Polish event since King Jagiello’s 1410 win against the Crusaders: Taylor Swift’s triple concert. The closer to Taylor Swift, the more the city smelled like glitter, sugar and blood, most men seemed to have disappeared and everywhere you looked there were young women and girls wheeling around pink suitcases. The Taylor Swift tickets were so cheap, girls and women flew in from all over the world. Somehow it was their presence – the whole city seemed to be under siege of pink and glitter – that pushed me to finally break my no-live-shows resolve because I suddenly felt I really had to indulge in some very loud techno and remind myself that there was music out there that didn’t sound like what lip gloss looked like.

I bought the tickets to Paul Kalkbrenner although I was a little nervous since I was going alone and I had no idea what to expect in terms of the venue and the crowd. In the past I would sometimes make an exception to my no-live-shows and see techno but to me, techno is more than a concert, it’s an experience, and, most importantly, no one ever breaks out in guitars.

The venue was on the edge of the city, somewhere beyond the large swath of cemeteries, in one of those warehouse lands, in a large field that was probably some sort of a military complex before the end of communism. The crowd was surprisingly – or not surprisingly at all – older, as in my age. This is a thing about age, we forget that our idols get older, which means we also get older. Last time I went to see Richie Hawtin, on entering the venue I wondered why everyone’s parents showed up. Then I remembered we were the parents. Including Richie Hawtin. As for Paul Kalkbrenner, he is also a middle-aged man and we, his middle-aged fans, behaved perfectly proper, dancing and saying “przepraszam,” if someone got elbowed by accident. There were some younger people around, and the vibe was bouncy and a little on the edge but it was nothing compared to the dark, terrifying basements of my youth where the relentless base would make me throw up as I vibrated, half-delirious beside a speaker. Back then, the crowds were also mostly male, and I’ve been to a couple of shows that brought on unfortunate comparisons to a Nazi rally because everyone had a shaved head and boots. It felt a little dangerous to be a girl in those places, wearing a napkin for a shirt. But I liked it precisely for that reason.

Which is the opposite of what I like now. Now I just want to have a little fun. So I had a little fun, dressed in my white tank, flowers-and-palm leaves Adidas tracksuit and blue Sambas, dancing alone, but not alone, wedged between a gorgeous woman half my age in platform boots and an enthusiastic 30something and his boyfriend who kept raising their hands in the air, in the setting sun. The DJ played my favourite hits right off the bat, and since I know his music so well, when he got to the less favourite tracks, I decided to go.

I looked at my phone. I spent exactly 40 minutes bouncing not far from the stage (my chest was vibrating like back in the day). The party was just in the middle of itself, I knew there were at least another 40 minutes to go but I reminded myself that I could go because I’m a grownup and I can do whatever I want. And that was an even better decision than the one to go to the show in the first place. Do you know why? Because since that time I’ve come up with a new mantra that has worked out for me really well. The mantra is: You can [do the thing], you’re a grownup. I’ve been a grownup for a while now, but it’s taken me almost 30 years to allow myself to do the thing or not do the thing without feeling guilty, ashamed, or like I’m wasting others’ time, or like I have to, or should, or must, etc., I have a lot more freedom than I think I have, I am very lucky to have all this freedom, and I don’t owe anybody any explanation unless I’ve committed to something and someone depends on me. Any other time? I can go, I’m a grownup. And with that, I would like to wrap up my 2024.

On the night of Paul Kalkbrenner, I walked home alone, first weaving through the sweaty, happy crowds, past the security and the portable toilets, then out of the military complex, then the warehouses, and past the cemeteries, and then through the empty streets of Warsaw and I thought about how I should call an Uber because I–but then I decided to just walk because I really just wanted to walk and because I’m a grownup I walked.

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