This is a thought I've been kicking around for a while now and it seems to be cementing itself more as I recently joined a Gen-X group on social media. And while it's fun to share memories about the way things used to be, I can't help but be a little... disappointed, I guess would be the closest word I'm looking for. Disappointed at the attitudes of my fellow Gen-Xer's. For a group of kids who were the lost generation, the middle generation, the generation that was ignored by society, the latchkey kids, children of divorce and nuclear families, as they(we) are getting a little longer in the tooth, I get more and more disappointed that their attitudes are becoming more and more like the Boomer Generation.
I've lost count of how many times a Gen-Xer will post about the "good old days." Or how things were "simpler back then." And the mocking derision of the other generations, the Boomers, Millennials and Z to an extent. And I can't help but laugh, This is NOT what Gen-X was supposed to be about. We were the "Meh" generation. The disaffected youth. The rebellious middle generation that lived through the excesses of the 70s and 80s, birthed the grunge movement to counter that. Stripped down our music to the core, revolutionary filmmakers that stepped away from the traditional studio system and took chances in their storytelling. Gone was the big hair, big shoulders, gaudy looks in fashion. Jeans and a t-shirt was the uniform. Maybe a flannel if it got cold. Now as the older members of my generation are reaching retirement age... and how scary is that? They're starting to sound more and more like Boomers before them. Pretty soon these members of X are going to be sitting on their porches, listening to Whitesnake while their Firebird becomes a rusting heap in the driveway.
I've often heard many of them lament about how they wished they could relive those glory days. How they want to go back to that place in time because of how much better things were for them. To which I say: FUCK THAT.
The 80s, while I enjoyed my era of growing up and living at the tail end of the Cold War, before the War on Terror, the War on Drugs, the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, the information age, the launch of MTV, the only reason anyone could realistically say those were the "better days" were because their lives haven't improved much, if at all, in the intervening 30+ years. Sorry my generational brothers and sisters, my life has excelled since those days. THESE are my glory days now. The only thing reliving the 80s would do for me that would be an improvement on today would be to still have my family members I've lost over the decades. Grandparents whom I didn't know that well, or my own father, who was tough to really get to know because he was so involved with keeping a roof over our heads and still trying to be a good son to his own parents.
If the best years of your life are over 30 years ago, you either haven't really appreciated what's come since, or you really don't have much of a life now and likely, didn't then. The only difference may be that the blissful naivete of youth is what beckons you. Was that honestly the best your life ever got?
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