!.! “I know I used to be crazy. Chaotic, but oh my gosh, it was fun. I know I used to be wild, that’s because I used to be young” – Miley Cyrus writes in the chorus of her new ballad Used To Be Young.!.!

Miley Cyrus was well received by the audience when singing about her rebellious past – Photo: Billboard

Miley Cyrus stepped down a dark alleyway, wearing an iconic Disney Mickey Mouse T-shirt over a sparkly red strapless dress.

The light hits Miley’s face, she sings and breaks down in tears: “The truth is bulletproof. Nothing can fool you. I don’t dress like that anymore. Me and ‘yesterday me’ have gone our separate ways.”

No regrets, no denial

Miley’s image in the latest music video Used To Be Young is reminiscent of the time when teenagers sat in front of the TV screen, waiting for the show Hannah Montana to start.

In the music video for The Climb, one of the best songs on the series’ soundtrack, Miley Cyrus also walks down a path filled with darkness.

Miley Cyrus – The Climb

It was 2009, 14 years ago, when Miley was 17 years old and was Disney’s most famous child star.

On the other hand, Used To Be Young reminds us of Miley’s 2013 MV Wrecking Ball. There are also close-up shots of her face, and Miley singing and crying, but in Wrecking Ball, the frame is a painful white.

Wrecking Ball is when Miley throws away her innocent image to boldly sit naked on a swinging stone sphere, writhe around a chain, lick a hammer, rebel and “refuse to be tamed”.

At that time, Miley cried because she wanted to break the sweet impression of the past to become a fierce, seductive, and wild version. But now it’s different.

A decade has passed, although today’s Miley is no longer wild, she does not shed tears to deny her past self. She shed tears to show gratitude for that past.

Is maturity like that, when we do not deny the person we were in the past, but understand that all pasts make us who we are in this moment?

Perhaps the audience who were disappointed by the fall of a teenage idol would expect Miley to cry out in regret, begging to start over. But no, she said she doesn’t regret the tattoos, the slips of the tongue, the parties, or the hasty life.

Miley Cyrus

In an interview with Vanity Fair magazine on her 30th birthday, Lindsay shared that if she could turn back time, she would listen to her mother, choose her friends better, and return home sooner. However, “I wouldn’t call this a regret.”

If Miley sees the past as “something you can’t erase”, Lindsay says “the past is in the past”.

But even if you have regrets, you can still love yourself. Britney Spears, another Disney icon, has a lot of regrets.

Britney Spears

She regrets her “terrible” 20s, regrets entering a quick marriage with Kevin Federline, regrets joining him on a reality TV show that exposed their private lives to the public, and even regrets a moment that is still considered a classic in the entertainment industry when she performed I’m A Slave 4 U on the MTV VMA stage with a python around her neck.

Britney, Miley, and Lindsay are all stars who grew up in front of the camera, had their youthful impulses magnified by the camera and turned their adult years into a show for the audience to watch.

They were misunderstood, had fun, lived without knowing tomorrow and probably many young people in this world have experienced similar things, it’s just that you don’t make it into the daily news.

All three are therefore like mirrors for us to reflect on the changes in ourselves over time, and sometimes they are the “scapegoats” for us to clearly see our own journey of growth.

Accepting mistakes, crazy decisions, irrational actions, and accepting that you… can’t accept them yet, is part of the process of growing up.

Because maturity is not a straight line, one can only mature after a thousand struggles.!.!