a blast to the past

There are few moments that I become so overwhelmed that the only way I can release my emotions is through throwing some words down, trying my best to remind my future self of how I’m feeling in this exact moment.

This is not unknown knowledge, but social media is big right now. Everyone is facebooking, tweeting, and instagraming about all the cool things they do, the weird people they see, and how bad/good they can look in a selfie. Only a couple times out of the year is my newsfeed completely immersed in just one topic. Last night: the VMAs. More specifically, Justin Timberlake.

JT came out on stage escorted by the unique and electric movements of his limbs. He wowed the crowd from the get-go. And every time a new set of beats reached the thousands of ears in the Barclays Center, the audience went wild. It didn’t take JT much to have his suitors... I mean, fans, on their feet, hands up, and voices loud.

As if JT himself, his dance moves, and his voice wasn’t enough, the place then faded to pitch black – leaving the crowd and all the TV viewers wondering what was coming next. The blue-tinted spotlights seemed to be having a seizure as everyone noticed four figures rising from the depths of the stage. I knew those figures, and so did everyone else. N’SYNC was back, flooding the whole crowd (well, those of us born before 1995) with a strong sense of nostalgia.

But what was happening on stage was too awesome for me to even bother getting emotional. I tried not to cry, and instead I just imagined the reactions of people happening across the country in that very moment.

JT didn’t leave us in the early years of the millennium though; he ended with his most recent hit, "Mirrors," bringing us back to 2013. So JT’s performance wasn’t just a good performance. For people my age, and maybe others too, it was a performance that took me on a journey through the past.

I imagined my 2001 self – hanging my first N’SYNC poster on my bedroom wall. I imagined my sassy middle school self singing "Cry Me A River" to all my friends. I imagined myself putting earbuds in my first generation iPod to listen to “My Love.” I then imagined myself just six months ago listening to JT’s newest hits on the 20/20 Experience.

So maybe I do get emotional because it’s surreal to see someone who is so, so good at what they do. Or perhaps it’s because JT has been doing his thing since my childhood, and every note he sings attempts to take me back to a time period in my life that I’ll never experience again. But regardless, what his friends say is true – “It’s music you can see.”