You used to cringe when your mom sang in the grocery store. She'd push the cart down the bread aisle humming along to Johnny Mathis or Elvis, or maybe belting a line from Frankie Valli like she was on stage.

You'd pretend not to notice. You'd roll your eyes. You'd die a little inside.

And now?

Now you're standing in front of the frozen peas mouthing "She's got Bette Davis eyes" like it's your national anthem.

You didn't notice when it started—the shift, the handoff. One day you were a kid trailing behind, begging for Count Chocula, and now you're the one humming along to Bon Jovi at the deli counter.

Not ironically, but because that second verse still makes your heart race.

Raspberry Beret. Time After Time. Shout.

You remember the videos to these songs. You remember the smell of the house you grew up in when this was the top of the charts. And now you remember yourself with each chorus.

It snuck up on us, didn't it? This "middle" thing. This "becoming our parents" thing. This standing under horrible fluorescent lights while time-traveling through a pop song thing.

And maybe it's not that bad.

Because there's a strange kind of comfort in realizing we didn't just survive our youth; we packed it in—into our bones, into our playlists, into the way we still know the exact dance break to "Let's Hear It for the Boy."

We are now the ones haunting the grocery store soundtrack.

And if the kid behind us rolls their eyes? Good. Let the cycle continue.

This has been a love letter to a forgotten thing, and the day your cool died, right next to the Lean Cuisines.