Prince, it’s you not me

Anyone with a Facebook or Twitter page in Canada was probably aware that the legendary pop superstar, Prince, recently toured through the country. The status updates were unavoidable.

People getting ready for Prince.

People lining up for Prince.

People being seated at Prince.

Prince was in the house and there was no way you could escape it, though I really, really wanted to.

When I was a teenager, Prince was my messiah. During those particularly imbalanced times, I genuinely wanted to have sex with him and had the opportunity presented itself to me, I absolutely would have. He filled my thoughts. Rather than cutting myself, or joining an after school sports team or whatever it is teenagers do with their time, I fully immersed myself in Prince and his music.  When I was in grade 11, he broke a long silence and released a new album, appropriately titled Emancipation: I cut school twice in one month to watch him promote it on Rosie and Oprah.

To show my undying and everlasting love to Prince, I even got a tattoo of his male/female symbol on my stomach, in purple, and displayed it proudly every chance I could. (I was also 16, so showing off your belly wasn’t that inappropriate of at the time.)

The only thing is, my love has been far from everlasting. In fact, in recent months, it’s faded drastically. (I’ve also since got the tattoo covered up.) I obviously never thought that would happen. And I’m surprised that it did.

For a huge chunk of my life, identifying as a Prince fan helped define me as a person. When I was a teenager, I identified with his music on a sexual level. He sang about things that intrigued and excited me, things I really wanted to explore, just as I was discovering a new part of myself. (Ew, that sounds so gross.)

In my 20s, identifying as a Prince fan helped define me as someone who had good taste in pop music and liked to dance. It was way cooler to say I was weaned on Prince, than say, New Kids on the Block.

Now, in my 30s, I feel like identifying as a Prince fan only helps define me as someone who’s attached to nostalgia. And I’m not a terribly nostalgic person. When I think about my past, I’m mostly embarrassed by it. Instead, I choose to pretend most if it never existed, hope nothing comes back to haunt me, look forward and evolve.

I haven’t bought a Prince album since I was a teenager. Since then, let’s face it, he’s made terrible music. And he’s gotten pretty weird. And not in the making-women’s-lingery-sexy-on-a-man-and-not-allowing-interviewers-to-take-any-kind-of-notes-intense-dramatic-other-planet kind of weird. Having been in the same room as him once, I can assure you that kind of weirdness is the stuff of legends.

Naw, his new weirdness is the kind where you’re kind of concerned about his already questionable mental well-being. It wouldn’t be surprising to find him on your doorstep, asking if you’d heard the good word. (Becoming a Jehovah Witness is known to do that to people. Oh, it’s also known to isolate and traumatize family members who want to leave the religion, suppress free speech and thought, and generally ruin lives.)

By all accounts, Prince still puts on a great show. He’s cut the naughty bits out, which is what I loved most about his music, but he apparently still knows how to excite a stadium. So much so that people couldn’t stop posting about it on Facebook. I’m not going to lie and say it didn’t make me jealous and sad that I missed what is being called the greatest show our country has ever seen. But I ended up having a pretty good night, regardless of not attending his concert.

I went to my friend Louise Burns’ show at the Horseshoe tavern. There, I watched a mini Canadian super-group perform a solid set. Louise, a veteran singer/songwriter who was once signed to Madonna’s label, was backed by a guy who plays in Sloan, and the former bass player from Hot Hot Heat, who was also my first serious, long-term boyfriend.

I hadn’t spoken or seen him perform in years, and it was a trip to watch him in such a different context. The three jammed away, happily, exchanging inside jokes and playing songs from one of my favourite albums of the year.  It was really fun to watch.

I could have been caught up in nostalgia that night, both at the Prince concert and at the Horseshoe, in front of my first true love. But I wasn’t. Instead, I reveled in being present, being there, because I knew it was exactly where I was meant to be.

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