the weight of “making nice”: on stevie nicks and the myth of mandatory peace

women don't owe you reconciliation

There's something particularly telling about the way we expect our rock stars to perpetually reconcile, as if decades of complex human dynamics could be reduced to a warm backstage embrace and a greatest hits tour. When Mick Fleetwood recently expressed his "fantasy" of seeing Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham "pal up," he wasn't just speaking for himself – he was channeling a culture that consistently demands women sacrifice their boundaries on the altar of nostalgia.

The math here is simple, though the emotions aren't: Nicks has given "more than 300 million chances" to a relationship that began when she was barely out of her teens. That's not hyperbole – it's the exhausted arithmetic of a woman who spent nearly five decades navigating the space between personal preservation and professional obligation.

In a 2013 conversation with NPR, Nicks spoke about the pressure on women in rock to maintain a kind of mythical presence – to "float in like goddesses." But what happens when the goddess decides to step off her pedestal? When she chooses, at 76, to finally say: enough?

The cultural insistence that Nicks should reconcile with Buckingham reveals our deep discomfort with women who refuse to perform the emotional labor of peacekeeping. We're fine with female rage when it's commodified into platinum albums, but we expect that rage to have an expiration date, preferably one that coincides with ticket sales, or, at the very least, amicable public appearances.

But Nicks isn't playing that game anymore. Her declaration – "I proactively removed myself from the band and a situation I considered to be toxic to my well-being" – isn't just about one relationship or one band. It's about the radical act of a woman choosing herself after decades of choosing everyone else. Their last interaction, at Christine McVie's celebration of life, demonstrated that Nicks can honor the past without being imprisoned by it.

The irony here is rich: the same industry that made millions off the public dissolution of Nicks and Buckingham's relationship – that turned their pain into the cultural touchstone that is "Rumours" – now wishes they could simply paper over that history for the sake of comfort. It's as if we learned nothing from the very songs we claim to revere.

As a solo artist, Nicks has released eight studio albums and mounted 17 tours. She's been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice – once with Fleetwood Mac, once for her solo work. Her legacy isn't contingent on any reconciliation tour or carefully staged photo opportunity. It's secured in the generations of artists who learned from her that you don't have to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.

At this point, asking Stevie Nicks to "pal up" with Buckingham isn't just tone-deaf – it's a form of cultural gaslighting that suggests a woman's boundaries are less important than a man's fantasy of resolution. Perhaps it's time we let the goddess rest — or at least enjoy doing exactly as she pleases. She's earned it.