Coming of age with Madonna

It's May 29, 1985, and my best friend Laura and I - all of 13 and 12 years old - are standing in front of the Spectrum, clutching rainbow-hued Ticketron passes to see Madonna. Not only is this Madonna's first U.S. tour and her first time in Philly, but more important, it's our First Concert Without Parents.

Here we are, future women of the world, about to occupy the same space in the universe as our idol, future member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!

One of my older sisters drops us off at Broad and Pattison, and we strut around the Spectrum for a bit before taking our seats, leaving frosted-pink lipstick stains on the cigarettes we brazenly smoke out in the concourse. (Sorry, Mom.)

We chat up some boys, though most of them are either with their parents, making them automatically less cool than us, or just enough older than we are that they seem dangerous. The boys don't really matter too much, though - we know they'll come and go, but we'll definitely be BFFs.

Toward the end of the show, a net above our heads opens, showering thousands of white balloons onto the front rows. The balloons are printed with a message: "Dreams come true," a lyric from Madonna's song "Angel." Pretty heavy stuff for a couple of Catholic school girls on the edge of womanhood. (I think there's a grainy VHS version of it on YouTube now.)

After the concert ends, Laura's dad arrives in his wood-sided station wagon to take us back to Manayunk. We're hoarse from screaming, clutching glossy tour programs and oversized black T-shirts with the words "Virgin Tour" emblazoned across the chest. (This is long before anyone will think of stamping the word "Juicy" across a young girl's behind, though the net effect is probably the same.)

Nearly 23 years later, Laura and I are still as close as sisters, though now we're flirting with middle age the way we flirted with adulthood that night at the Spectrum.

That summer, roaming the arcades of the Wildwood Boardwalk, Laura and I wore our Madonna tour T-shirts cinched with wide belts over leggings, with flats and cartoonishly large plastic jewelry - the kind of outfit Lily Allen, who was born that summer, might rock nowadays.

Like millions of other li'l wannabes, we used our Madonna fandom as a way to push boundaries with our parents. "You can wear the crucifix earrings but no rosary around your neck, and no, it's not OK to let your bra straps show." That kind of thing. They could see we were growing up fast. We could, too, but we were still impatient.

A few years later, not long after "Papa Don't Preach" came out, I was trying to avoid failing Latin in high school, and my best friend was pregnant, trying to find a way to break it to her dad but definitely keeping her baby. It wasn't that we believed Madonna to be the greatest singer or dancer in the world - we were young, not stupid - but if it felt at times like she was living our lives, it's because she was.

She was our avatar, struggling with her daddy issues and her Catholicism and trying to figure out whether and how to use her brains and her body. Reinventing herself at will and as needed, but always moving forward.

Our own experiences didn't play out on MTV News the way Madonna's did, but in our everygirl way, we went through the same phases, from virgin to material girl to party girl, both emerging on the other side of it all as wives and mothers. Some dreams do come true.