A Vegas girls’ trip, a wooden door, and two hours of feeling 12 again.
By Rachel Moore
I’m about two months late to the Backstreet Boys conversation. Which feels about right given the pace of life these days. But I’ve been thinking about this since August, and so here it goes!
My sister and I went to Vegas to see the Backstreet Boys at the Sphere. It was our first girls’ trip since losing our mom nearly five years ago. The whole point was to get away, spend time together, and relive a little bit of 1999.
Now, if you’re wondering what Vegas looks like in your late 30s, our trip started with me walking directly into a wooden door at 6 a.m.- not because I was drunk, but because I woke up to pee. Nothing says midlife in Vegas quite like injuring yourself on the way to the bathroom . . . But we rallied.
We got ready like it was 1999: Butterfly clips, those little spiderweb ponytails we all wore in middle school, the whole thing. Although, when I parted my hair to recreate mine, I managed to expose every single gray hair I hadn’t gotten around to coloring. Apparently, the hairstyles of our youth were not designed with gray roots in mind. But that is beside the point.
We then got ourselves a drink and headed to the concert!
I’ve seen all the videos, and I’m sure many of you have too, but I genuinely don’t think they capture what it felt like to be in that room. I don’t know if I’ve ever been surrounded by that many women who seemed so completely free. For two hours, it felt like every woman in that room forgot about her anxiety, her insecurities, her responsibilities, and whatever else was waiting for her back home. . . No comparison. No worrying about how we looked. No trying to be cool or put together. . . . Just thousands of women absolutely losing their minds over the same five guys we loved when we were 12.
And it was INCREDIBLE!
We were screaming, dancing, laughing, and singing every single word. Nobody cared what anybody else was doing because we were all doing the exact same thing. Afterward, my sister described the whole experience as “a pilgrimage for women in their 30s and 40s” and I think she nailed it. It wasn’t really about five guys in a boy band (although, somehow, they look and sound like they did in 1999, which feels unfair), it was about getting to feel like the 12-year-old version of yourself again for a couple of hours.
We ended the night dancing to a truly horrendous DJ playing ’90s music at the Venetian and somehow, even that was perfect.
I think we spend so much time talking about the hard parts of getting older that we sometimes forget how much fun this stage of life can actually be. And if there’s one thing I took away from that weekend, it’s that I want more moments where I can completely forget about everything else and just have fun.
So, my advice? Go to the concert. Specifically, the Backstreet Boys. You might be surprised how good it feels to be 12 again. Even if your gray hair and bladder have other plans.
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