By Julianna W. Miner

It may have been because the sun had just set. Or maybe it was the effect of the street lamp or the new spring grass that was so absurdly, verdantly green that it didn’t look real. The air was quickly cooling and the purple-tinged sky was dotted with stars. It was beautiful. Surreal. A little trippy, actually. My little corner of the world felt somehow altered.

My neighbors were out in their yard blasting Dave Matthews Band as I walked my dogs. “Under the Table and Dreaming” began to play and I was suddenly overcome with what it felt like to be nineteen again.

I breathed deeply. It’s spring, it’s freedom, it’s Friday night. It’s the tangible feeling of being on the cusp of summer. The surging, exciting uncertainty of what might happen tonight, because something in the air makes it feel like something will happen. It’s intoxicating. I felt almost buzzed, but better — drunk on the ephemeral magic of being young.

In that moment, I was transported. This type of nostalgia is rooted in more than just a longing for bygone days. It is a neurological phenomenon that almost feels like time travel, and though it was brief — it was wonderful.

I remember when Friday nights always felt like that, so full of possibility. Not knowing what the night could bring, who I might run into. The careful deliberations of what to wear. The hyperawareness of how I would be perceived. The intense scrutiny I gave to every aspect of my body. The hope that I would be seen, admired, pursued. The anticipation was a tangible, delicious ball of warmth in my belly. The thrill of the chase and the agony of rejection out there, waiting.

It all felt like scenes in a movie. A certain song playing at a party was a soundtrack and an omen. I could meet someone’s eyes, see them smile, and wonder if it would be a beginning, the night my whole life would change. Every party was like walking onto a new stage, a new performance, another opportunity for something to happen. I was both fully present and fully detached, observing everything.

Those nights would generally end with friends and laughs, Marlboro Reds and carbs. After such meticulous grooming, we’d wind up smelling like cigarettes, breath mints, and gas station food. Mascara, lipstick, and painful self-consciousness long gone, we’d smile our real smiles, forget that we were supposed to be holding in our stomachs, and relax into the evening’s denouement. We’d lounge around, carefully deconstructing everything that happened. We’d imagine various alternate outcomes, infer meaning where there was none, and bemoan the subjects of our fascination who did not, in turn, find us fascinating.

Looking back on the rare occasions where I was seen and pursued, the anticipation of what might happen was far more satisfying than anything that actually did. In fact, those encounters are notably lacking anything close to my own satisfaction. Though to be honest, I’m not sure that was my goal. I was satisfied to be pursued, not the other way around. I wanted to be wanted.

This type of nostalgia is rooted in more than just a longing for bygone days. It is a neurological phenomenon that almost feels like time travel, and though it was brief — it was wonderful.

As I got a little older, I was often in a relationship but the buzz of the weekend would still consume me. I was happy to ride the wave and see where the nights would take us. We might go hear a band, or drink beer in someone’s back yard, or find ourselves wandering around in the city, praying we wouldn’t miss the last train home.

Sometime in my early twenties, the allure of Friday night gradually succumbed to the exhaustion of the week. I went from a student to an adult with a job; from girlfriend to wife. There were fewer moments where my life felt like a movie. It was a little disappointing, but other things made up for it. My weekends may have been less exciting, but they were infinitely more satisfying. Real life, instead of a performance. Real connection, rather than my imagination.

The recollections became more scarce until I barely thought about it at all. It’s been a long time since those nights found me. I know now they were never meant to last; they were meant to remember.

Those peaks came with valleys I have no desire to revisit. I don’t think you can ever have one without the other. The dark basements of my youth are filled with memories both good and bad. The loud music, smelly couches, and sticky floors can seem ominous now. Friday night was a siren song; a cunning whisper of what could be. Sometimes the whisper turned into a warning. A siren blaring, blue lights flashing, telling you the party’s over and nothing good will happen here. After all, weekends are always followed by Mondays, and sometimes by shame and regret.

The recollections became more scarce until I barely thought about it at all. It’s been a long time since those nights found me. I know now they were never meant to last. They were meant to remember.

There’s a neurological explanation for why all these vivid memories and feelings have stuck with me for so many years. It’s called “the reminiscence bump.” When we reach late adolescence, our developing brains produce more dopamine receptors than we’ve ever had before — and perhaps more importantly — than we’ll ever have again.

The experiences we have during that time — riding around town with our friends, windows down and music blaring, first kisses, late-night ice cream — create these intense, visceral memories. They do so because the pleasure they evoked hit a peak that’s impossible to forget or surpass. We had never felt anything so intensely. And we likely never will again.

It’s why the music, movies, tastes, and smells from that time remain important to us throughout our lives. It’s why no strawberry ice cream will ever taste as good. It’s why elderly patients with dementia can still sing you every lyric of the song they danced to with their sweetheart, though they’ve forgotten the names of their children.

It’s also why we can occasionally, when the stars align, still feel a bit of that magic, the ghost of a dopamine high from our youth. That warm spring night as Dave Matthews played from my neighbor’s yard, I felt it. It blew through me like a breeze. It was good, and it was gone. I felt no urge to chase after it or beg for it to stay a little longer. So I let it go, the highs, the lows, and all that time cannot change. And I sent it off with a blessing for whoever would receive it next.

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Julianna W. Miner is an adjunct professor of public health, a blogger at Rants from Mommyland, and author of Raising a Screen Smart Kid. (July 2019, Penguin Random House/Tarcher Perigee).

Follow her at @juliannawminer