The Summer I Turned 17 (Again)

How Teenage Soundtracks Shape Who We Become

Welcome to Coffee with Coops! 💛☕️ I’m Coops, an Award-winning Positive Psychology Wellbeing Expert & Thrivership Coach™, here to help you thrive. My love languages? Coffee, cake, movies, and classical music.

✨This reader-powered corner of the internet gives you access to my full archive, live sessions, replays, and exclusive Mental Wealth resources

👇 Scroll down to catch the webinar replay on Community & Mental Wealth, grab your free downloadable journal prompts, and don’t miss the sneak peek just for MHFAiders® and Wellbeing Champions 👀

Because it’s Mental Health Awareness Month, I’m gifting you two weeks of paid subscription access—completely free. Explore the full experience, no strings attached.

The Summer I Turned Pretty isn’t just a teen romance. It’s a time machine. Whether you’re raising teens, bingeing American dramas, or - like me - still carrying your 17-year-old self around, this show does something rare: it reminds you how it felt to fall in love for the first time.

My 15-year-old niece Chloe and I are on opposite teams when it comes to the boys. I’m Team Jeremiah; she’s Team Conrad. You might already know this story: a coming-of-age romance set in the dreamy world of Cousins Beach. It’s based on Jenny Han's novel trilogy and follows Belly, a teen caught in a love triangle with two brothers she’s known her whole life.

Chloe and I are buzzing. There’s an unexpected final season coming this July. Last night, I finished rewatching the first two seasons for the second time. I first watched it during my heartbreak summer of 2023, when my ex broke up with me - the kind of ache where all you want to do is cry. The show helped me do just that. Whenever I return to it, I’m pulled back into the feeling of teenage love.

Unlike some people who say they hated being a teenager, I had the best time. Like Belly, boys only noticed me when I was around 16 or 17. I was always seen as a mate, which I loved, but it was exciting when the boys I liked reciprocated that attention. Even when that attention was returned, the crushes and drama never stopped.

My best mate Nat and I went on holiday to Spain for my 18th birthday.

Summer was always the best time of year.

We lived for the long days of summer holidays… There was sun, drama, underage alcohol purchases, kissing, and fair rides, all before phones and social media.

15-year-old Coops [left] on a summer week-long trip with school to Scarborough.

Did someone say Sun-In hair products?

My friends and I all had weekend or part-time jobs - mine was at Dolcis in Derby City, the coolest fashionable high street shoe store. It was the best. I started there when I was 14 until 16 years old and thought I was the bees’ knees with my jelly sandals, wedged trainers, and my first pair of knee-high boots.

It was also one of my places for a first proper crush – his name was Rich. That summer, Let Loose - Crazy for You was in the charts. I bought the cassette single and played it on loop in my dad’s van after he picked me up from work, en route to Skegness, where the rest of the family was already on holiday.

But whenever I hear that song, even now, bam - it’s like a musical time machine.

Dolcis. Rich. Road-tripping to Skegness with my dad.

Summer felt endless. It felt full of possibilities, of unsaid promises, and life was joyous and free.

Reflecting on my obsession with this TV show made me think about how I could reconnect with my younger self. I asked Spotify to curate a playlist of 90s nostalgia for me. While walking this week, I immersed myself in Year 10/11 and Sixth Form memories, revisiting the highs and lows of teenage life. I am still besties with my crew, Nat and Gareth. They are the ones who knew and still know everything about me: every drama, every boy, including my crush on a boy named Marcus. I almost hear Gareth saying, “Just the one,” with his signature eyeroll.

Gareth and I were in GCSE English class when this was taken. We were about 16 years old.

Natalie has all the evidence of our great love documented in our letters. We wrote to each other at night and exchanged them in the morning or during the day, often meeting in the bathrooms to pass notes. This is like WhatsApp, but on paper! I am surprised we managed to do any schoolwork. For us, school was very social, and we loved it.

My folder of letters from Nat, 1995-97.

I was driving back from Argos (very adult) this week when Shakespeare’s Sister came on from the Spotify playlist. I was 15 again, furious about being dragged on holiday to Greece when I only wanted to stay home to go to Belper Fair with Natalie. I sulked, stormed off with my CD Walkman, and blasted my music to make a point.

What I wouldn’t give for my parents to ask me to go to Cyprus with them this weekend, ha.

But I was intrigued as to why we have this deep and easy connection to music since our teenage years. Is it just me? It turns out it isn’t, or sentimentality. It is how our brain is wired, and neuroscientists have coined the term Neural Nostalgia.

🧠 What Is Neural Nostalgia?

A 2009 study played participants music from when they were between 8 and 18 years old while scanning their brains. The songs that sparked autobiographical memories lit up the prefrontal cortex, the brain region responsible for decision-making and shaping our sense of self.

Your brain doesn’t just hear the music. It remembers who you were becoming.

The brain strongly associates sensory input, especially music, with emotionally significant memories from adolescence and early adulthood. Songs tied to emotional moments (such as dancing with Rich to "Baby, I love your way” at a work party and me drinking Archers and Lemonade) light up the brain’s reward system, releasing the happy hormones dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. When we experience that surge of emotion, it deepens the memory loop, ensuring the song and the feeling remain intact.

My 19th birthday and juicy tube lip gloss - ahoy! Those thin 90s eyebrows on fleek.

It turns out that the brain is reactive to music between the ages of 12 and 22. So a song you might hear at 36 years old that gives you a buzz, would give you a rush as a teenager because your neural reward system is firing more intensely at those ages. Add in the hormones – oh yes, we are leaking them everywhere as a teenager – you’ve got a beautiful cocktail of Impulse body spray, Juicy Tubes lip gloss and Sun-In hair dye – and deeply etched musical memories.

The Reminiscence Bump

Hearing "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls transports me to my final year of Sixth Form and the magic of coming of age. Psychologists refer to this as the reminiscence bump - a phenomenon where we recall our teens and early twenties more vividly than any other stage of life. These years are filled with identity-defining experiences, which is why "The Summer I Turned Pretty" and movies like "The Kissing Booth" captivate me so easily. During this period, we develop a “stable and enduring self.” The music we cherish then becomes intertwined with our memories of who we were and are striving to become.

Did someone say the Spice Girls?

And it wasn’t just personal, it was social. We were soundtracking our friendships, too. Natalie’s Bon Jovi phase. Gareth’s Oasis obsession. My Spice Girls fixation (yes, I choreographed Who Do You Think You Are and made Sixth Form perform it). We had our electronic dance era. Defining movie nights. House parties. Pub lock-ins. Student Club nights. First loves.

And heartbreaks.

All of it. Etched in sound.

So if you unexpectedly cry at a 90s banger or dance like you’re 17 again (my vibe always), it’s your brain whispering, "Remember her. She’s still in here.” On the days you feel distant from yourself, those old songs can guide you home.

What’s your neural nostalgia track that transports you to your teenage self?

Drop it in the comments. Let’s build the ultimate memory playlist together.

Did you miss the webinar on Community & Mental Wealth this week? Paid subscribers can watch the replay [here] and if you click the link, you can download a free journal prompt handout.

📆 Next up: Calm with Coops returns on Tuesday, June 3rd. It offers 75 minutes of digital calm, nervous system reset, and a nudge back to yourself. It is free for paid subscribers and best served with tea, socks, and no guilt.

👀 The link will be dropped next weekend to book in!

I’ve also taken a few grief pieces from behind the paywall for Dying Matters Awareness Week. There is no fluff, just truth, tenderness, and real talk. You can read them [here], or you can head to the desktop version of Coffee with Coops and read from the grief section.

☕️ P.S. Coming soon: the Courageous Conversations Handbook - built for MHFAiders®, Wellbeing Champions, and anyone who wants to feel braver in the wellbeing tricky chats. It’ll be free for paid subscribers and a small cost for everyone else.

Big heart, big help.

Take a breath. Take a seat. Two weeks of calm and connection, my treat.

Try the free trial. Take what you need. Read a little, listen in, breathe out. Stay if it feels good. No rush. No noise. Just a quiet space that’s here when you are.

Love Coops☕️💛