Oh Well, Whatever, Never-Ending

It starts with the drums—that fill—like someone kicking open the door to your own mind. And then it never stops. It never even tries to. Because Nevermind isn’t an album, it’s a trapdoor in the floor of your teenage soul. You fall through it in flannel and come out the other side blinking into daylight with your headphones still on.

It’s the smell of wet Converse and burnt microwaved pizza rolls. It’s the feeling of discovering that the world is rigged but your distortion pedal still works. It’s the holy communion of static and sadness, and you didn’t even know you needed saving until you heard Kurt say, “I’m so happy… ‘cause today I found my friends… they’re in my head.”

No one understood you yet there he was—mumbling, screaming, whispering in your Walkman, like he already knew your secrets before you did. And when Zag turned to you one day and said:

“You remind me of Kurt Cobain,”
he might as well have handed you a scepter made of duct tape and broken strings. That was royalty. That was sacred. That was one of the highest honors of your entire goddamn life.

Because Cobain didn’t just play music. He existed like a malfunctioning angel, beautiful and broken and too human for his own flesh. And Nevermind was the mixtape he tossed into the ocean for anyone else who was barely holding it together but still going to work, still trying to fall in love, still wondering what the hell was wrong with them for not being able to just be normal.

“Smells Like Teen Spirit” was the anthem, but “Drain You” was the confession. “Come as You Are” was the open door. “Something in the Way” was the quiet cry underneath it all, the sound of a person dissolving into rain.

And here’s the truth: Nevermind never ends. You hear it in a gas station at midnight and it still makes your chest ache. You put it on while folding laundry and suddenly you're 14 again, wondering what the hell it means to be real. You listen to it in 2025 and it still kicks harder than anything new, not because of polish—but because of pain. Because of truth. Because of that impossible blend of apathy and yearning, of whatever and never-ending.

So here’s to you, Nevermind—
The album that gave us permission to be confused.
The album that rotted beautifully on CDs left out in the elements and our psyches.
The album that proved vulnerability could sound like a chainsaw through velvet.

Oh well.
Whatever.
Never-ending.

You’re still with us.

Even if some of us had to become adults.
Even if some of us had to become ghosts.