Well, I’ve lost the first major icon of my teenage years. Prince died yesterday. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this one.

When Purple Rain came out, my sister, a year and a half younger than me, REALLY wanted to see it. Our parents were willing to let us have the car to go to the theater. I wasn’t really interested, but in a rare show of older sibling nicety, I said, “Okay, we’ll go see it.”

And we did. I was blown away. BLOWN AWAY. Little did my sister know she had catapulted me into a love affair with an artist that would overshadow the last of my teens and my early twenties.

Prince had a lot to say, and in my impressionable 18-20’s  a lot of it really resonated with me. I began looking up his older stuff as well as anticipating new stuff – I loved him. I had Prince posters all over my room, which irritated my fairly racist father, but he never actually MADE me take them down, so I think that was a big step for him.

I got to see Prince in Detroit when he did his Purple Rain tour, and he was phenomenal. I’m so thankful I did that.

I lost touch with Prince’s music in my mid to late twenties, but I still loved his older stuff. And now that I’ve heard of his passing I’m feeling oddly emotional, and I suspect that’s because a piece of my young adulthood has died with him.