I became a partygirl when I was a young teenager. I was probably around 13 when I started partying with my friends and it just got more and more wild from there. You may be shocked by how young I was, but I was always a bit beyond my years and I had lots of friends who were older than me. I grew up in small villages, where there is just not much to do. You just hung out with people and of course the older ones drank alcohol and were into parties and you just went along with it. But before you totally freak out, I had personal boundaries and I never did absolutely terrible things. I was never brought home by the police or had to be taken to the hospital because I drank too much. I didn’t sleep around either or did anything super illegal. Yeah, underage drinking but you know what I mean. I just had fun with people I liked.

When I got a little older, I went everywhere from clubs to festivals or local concerts. Back then, the legal age to enter a club was 16. You were allowed to stay until midnight, unless your parents filled out a form that somebody over 18 was with you and took responsibility. Well, I never really stuck to any of it before I was actually old enough. I always looked a bit older and totally perfected the “oh no, I forgot my ID” tactic. It was just so easy, so I partied and drank a lot during my teenage years. On my 16th birthday, the bouncer from the club I constantly went to actually bought me a beer. He totally new that I was alway too young to actually be let inside but nobody really cared. I didn’t cause any trouble, after all.

My mom had to drive me around all the time and I am very grateful she did, also for trusting me. The worst thing I probably did was dance on counters and tables because it was just so damn fun. Or maybe the hitchhiking, here and there, but never alone and always with phone in hand. Me and one of my friends also loved to get super dolled up and make sure random guys bought us drinks and then, we would walk out on them. We just didn’t have a care in the world. It was also ok to walk home for miles, in the middle of the night, sometimes just us two girls, sometimes as a group. And yes, once I played strip poker with a bunch of my male friends and you can guess that it wasn’t my smartest move. I am forever grateful that I didn’t grow up with smartphones around. But it was just all fun and games and I never once actually felt like being in danger.

Sure, thinking about all of it now, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone, but when I was young, it just didn’t matter. You don’t overthink, you just do it. Call it reckless, but it’s just a part of growing up and you learn from mistakes. Furthermore, I do feel like it was just very different from today because a lot has changed and the world is a much more dangerous place than it was growing up. I wouldn’t do any of it today. The world is full of so much crime and I definitely don’t want to be the victim of it. I am definitely a lot more careful, today.

My greatest memories are from when I was around 16/17. I had switched schools and ended up getting together a clique of girls that you could just have an incredibly good time with. Some of them are my best friends, until today. We went everywhere, all the time and it was just so much fun. When you’re young, it’s just so easy not to take life too seriously. Basically all you had was school and sometimes, it just wasn’t the priority. Ok, almost never but we had a blast and that’s all we cared about. (We did all graduate though.) Some of us were 18 and were able to drive, so it was just perfect. We never even considered the fact that maybe they wouldn’t let us in somewhere for being too young. It just always worked and when police suddenly showed up, you just hid in a bathroom.

I also enjoyed to throw house parties, whenever there was something to celebrate or when my parents where out of town. Some where pretty crazy and I never told my mom the actual number of people. Sorry mom. And I mean, when people come and go and come and go, who can really count anyway, right? I once missed like half of my party because I had too much tequila and I couldn’t stop hugging our toilet. But hey, that’s just how it goes, sometimes. When I turned 18, I even had my own DJ. He was friend of mine and for once, I didn’t have to put together tons of mixtapes. Man, did I feel cool. I didn’t know anyone else who had their own DJ playing a set in their living room.

In general, I was always the one who had people over, no matter if big or small gatherings. Some of my favorite memories happened in my house. Also, the one where somebody thought it was funny to poor alcohol into our fish tank and killed them. Not such a fun one but something I will never forget.

When I sit together with my friends, we often talk about the good old days and reminisce about all the crazy things we experienced. The millions of parties we went to, all the people we met and also all the moments we’re not so terribly proud of will never be forgotten.

The day we sat on a bus that took us to an electronic music festival and after five minutes on the road, everyone around us started whipping out their drugs. Also, when it was seven in the morning and after already partying all night, we got to see one of our favorite DJ’s play, at the break of dawn. All those times when one of us made out with a totally embarrassing guy and we just laughed our butts off the next day. The mornings we woke up next to each other, still raving about how fun a party was. That moment, when my best friend thought it was fun to poor beer over her head after dying her hair black that day. My 22nd birthday, when we just had the night of our lives, which included me taking a terrible fall, thinking it was hilarious and waking up the next morning with a black and blue leg and still laughing about it. All the alcohol the carpet in my room drank over the course of over ten years. When we thought it was totally cool to attend a rock concert at our school, dressed like the Plastics, and got a lot of hate for it. When I graduated from school and partied for two weeks straight. I could write books about all the craziness we experienced and thinking about every single one of those moments makes me incredibly happy.

Sometimes, I wish I would’ve taken this madness to university, but once I was there, I focused on more important things. I was more the anti-social student who was only focused on studying and work. I hardly visited any party or joined any campus action. I think it’s because I started going out at such a young age, I was just over it. I had already seen it all. For me, going to university didn’t mean sudden freedom, away from school and parents, for me it meant growing up.

Now I’m 28 and pretty much all of my friends are around 30 and those party days are completely gone. Nobody has the time and energy anymore to party like a rockstar. Sometimes it makes me sad that nobody even tries to just go crazy again. You should see their reaction when I bring up a party. And even if I can get them out of the house, it’s just not the same. Everybody is too responsible now to just get wasted and let go. And trust me, I know that I’m not 16 anymore but sometimes, I would just like to pretend. But unless I can get everyone to stop thinking about how annoying they find the people, the music, the whole party and just enjoy the moment with their friends, it’s probably never going to happen again. I have to accept that we’ve grown out of it. The fact that almost everyone but me has been in a relationship for years, has a job and plans things like building houses and having babies, doesn’t really help, either. The thing is, I couldn’t imagine going through all the craziness again, either, but I just think that once in a while, it may actually be fun.

But I still love my girls and the memories will always stay very close to my heart. And a little bar-dancing, boy-kissing, vodka-drinking partygirl will always be a part of me, and I wouldn’t want to miss it for the world.

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