The Chronicles of Nostalgia

What a difference an hour can make. Last night I screamed until my throat was raw, and waved my arms until I couldn't feel them anymore, at the Westlife concert in the Cardiff International Arena. That alone probably makes me sound like a twelve year old, when in fact I'm 22 this month, but the utter exhilaration I felt when they were singing all the golden oldies that I used to listen to locked up in my room, was really reminiscent of my tweenage years, when we were so in love with these bands that we thought our hearts would break if we didn't meet them.
So, on a nostalgic high, my friend and I drove back to Swansea with Westlife as the soundtrack to our journey, blaring out of the speakers of her little Fiat with us croaking along to all the words. It was only as we pulled up to my flat that I was reminded that I am not a pre-teen anymore, sheltered from the big bad world by a mollycoddling mother and a group of friends whose idea of hell raising was getting slightly tipsy in our parent's houses. No, I am now an adult, albeit a student at the moment, living in a world where empty cans of lager, the smell of urine, and a couple rubbing cocaine into their gums, all at the front door to my flat, is rife.
Is it too much to ask that when I come home late at night, I do not have to trip over bottles of beer and be overwhelmed by the pungent stench of piss? Or should I just wake up, and recognise that my cloistered yet complacent childhood is far behind me?