I had a favorite toy growing up. It was The Beatles: Rock Band.

Let’s turn back time, all the way to 2009. For the fourth weekend in a row, I’m begging my father and brother to play “Beatles Rockband” with me. I want to play so badly that I don’t even wait for an answer: I’m already turning on the Wii, dragging out the toy drum kit and setting up the mic.

When they’d agree to play, I’d thank them by not asking my father to switch the settings to “lefty” whenever I wanted to play the guitar. Majority ruled, two against one. As a young girl, I distinctly remember priding myself on being able to play While My Guitar Gently Weeps on expert mode. But it wasn’t the plastic guitar that I loved most about “Beatles Rockband.” It was singing.

Things would come full circle ten years later, in the summer of 2019, during my study abroad in Sydney, Australia. Long story short, I’d joined a cover band with my friend Ethan, a drummer in my program who also happened to be one of my closest friends there. We were the only two young adults in the band – the rest of our band consisted of guys in their 20s and older, one of which was our program director, Mark.

Originally I was only supposed to play the flute in our band; I hadn’t brought mine with me from North Carolina, but Andrew Mack, our band’s saxophonist and woodwind extraordinaire, graciously lent me his student model. By the third rehearsal, though, I wanted more.

Now, here’s the thing about Australia: the drinking culture is HUGE. As such, during our weekly rehearsals, one of my bandmates always brought a cooler full of alcohol (the legal age is 18 there, so Ethan and I were free to indulge). There’s a good reason it’s called “liquid courage” – not after long, I found myself buzzed enough to utter the words,

“You know, I sing a little bit too.”

A few minutes later, I rattled off Sunday Morning by Maroon 5 so they could get a sense of my sound, and the rest is history. Soon enough, I was singing a large share of our setlist, my favorites being Forget You by CeeLo Green, Alicia Keys’ chorus in Empire State of Mind, Superstition by Stevie Wonder, and Amy Winehouse’s version of Valerie, a song that will always be close to my heart.

The Dirty Mack Band (named after both John Lennon’s temporary supergroup and our aforementioned saxophonist) got to gig at a couple different bars in Sydney while Ethan and I were there. There was a part of me that missed the adrenaline of performing – as a rhetorical communications major, I love to please a crowd. There was also something freeing about it, expressing myself in such a way where I wasn’t restricted by the sophistication of a wind ensemble or orchestra.

To those of you reading who might not have a heavy performance background, I wish I could convey how electrifying it feels. To forget all the worries and monotony of everyday life, just for an evening. To find a version of yourself that only exists on stage – one that believes in themselves and feels nothing but alive. And to do it while your closest study abroad friends are in the audience? Even better, and so much more meaningful.

Like many things in life, I perform not only for others, but for my younger self. To let her know she’s always been capable, even when she didn’t feel that way. And I’ll continue to push myself, and my limits, for her. She is bound by nothing.

Here’s a video of her in the first grade: