“The Greek word for “return” is nostos. Algos means “suffering.” So, nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.”― Milan Kundera, Ignorance
Gen X tends to fall into a trap of judgmental attitudes towards other generations too often. We exaggerate our upbringings as these overly independent coming of age stories that are without any safety and full of danger. The truth is much less dramatic and often glosses over the true traumas of our lives. Honestly it is like any other generation, full of shared and unique experiences—both good and bad. I’ve tried to never speak from a place of victimhood, nor do I feel me being arbitrarily born at a certain time gives me any special clout. Yes, musically I grew up in what I consider a very cool time. I experienced the end of the New Wave explosion, the second wave of punk rock, and hip hop. I also lived my teens in the grunge era, now referred to appropriately as “Dad Rock”. The music was diverse and there was a different vibe in pop culture then as radio was still important and MTV was still primarily videos.
The problem is this—every generation gets old. Our nostalgia is ours because it keeps us close to memories that formed our lives. Whether it was good memories or bad, we create attachments that help ease the suffering that is this life’s journey. As we age, we experience loss. Sometimes it’s just a simple loss like geographic locations, we move around, or the scenery changes. Then there are big ones—marriage, kids, career and death. The facing of mortality begins to weave its way into our journey at various points, tugging on our flight or fight responses. Every loss takes away from the idealism we carried as youth forcing reality to become a constant bully in our attempt at happiness. Age creates a conflict that makes us want to keep the things we hold dear about our nostalgia alive. This can be as simple as passing our music or movies on to the next generation, but it can also become a bitterness as our culture seems to be fading away.
This battle for sustained identity makes us uncomfortable. We struggle for independence as we see society corralling us into our neatly defined cattle shoots. Jobs turn into careers, relationships become marriages, and the dreams of youth take a back seat to the preparing for retirement. For most this is a normal transition and for others it is a signal to push against the grain. It is the nostalgia of youth that seems to be the rallying point. My parents’ generation often falls back on the American values idealism, recoiling at the modern state of youth. They forget that they once also embraced free love, counterculture, and varying ways to rebel. Gen X came out of that experiencing a new way of parenting that for the first time including both parents working, even in middle or upper middle-class homes. This was the birth of the latch-key kids.
“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.”― Marcel Proust
The problem that grew from our existence as kids with less supervision or parental guidance was a sense of independence that was at times based in our shared trauma. We weren’t choosing the independence; it was just that our families were broken by divorce or by economics. We began to become less of a unit with family, instead being forced to find our own way with chosen families that often led us into our own new subcultures. Yes, we created our own scenes, music, art, etc. but it was based on what the Boomers left us. It was unfinished in many respects or time to morph into our versions of what we inherited. This didn’t make us better, it simply made us who we are. A newer edition of people growing up in a system that had the same problems. Politically the youth always are the voices, so our parents’ generations fought for Civil Rights, Feminism, and against the Vietnam War. My generation began to fight against our own struggles. The class wars, growing economic disparity, and a big push for equality began generations earlier. As far as smashing the patriarchy and defending the rights of women or LGBTQ+ folks we were moving forward whilst still dragging toxicity with us.
Musically we saw the revolutionary spirit coming of age for us with gay icons putting themselves out there. George Michael, Boy George, and others were our peers in a sense, that were pushing boundaries and challenging how people saw both gender and sexuality. We also saw Public Enemy rapping “Fight the Power” which began to speak more truth into the untold realities of Black America—continuing the work of Black Power movement of the 60’s. Truth is though, we as kids were mostly just surviving our childhood and adolescence, in whatever shape that took. Our music, movies and TV were becoming more and more geared to us, but we weren’t tearing the system apart. We were doing our best to evolve humanity in ways that were often problematic but likely necessary to get us to where we are now. Nostalgia would say we were all cool kids who lived these reckless lives that centered around drinking out of garden hoses. The reality is much less romantic.
“There is no greater sorrow…
“There is no greater sorrow
Than to recall a happy time
When miserable.“― Dante Alighieri
As I said earlier, I believe nostalgia is a way to cope with our own fears and trauma. Sometimes we want younger people to love our music or culture so badly because we want to connect to our youth through them. To show them we were cool once. What I think is really happening most of the time is we want to escape our own realities that are often full of hardship, and loss. The facing of one’s mortality is a real wild experience; it is often why I feel my parents’ generation seems to be much more religious. They are legitimately seeing their world disappear whilst dealing with the deaths of their friends and family. The response to this is to cling to things that bring you comfort. This tends to be often nationalism, religion, and unfortunately materialism, in the form of legacy or heirlooms. The nostalgia of their parents becomes almost more than their own, to keep family lines intact whilst pushing the very systems or values they once themselves rebelled against.
Gen X is not innocent in this. I’ve seen many of my former “freak” friends who would dress, act, and proudly embrace the counterculture move away from it. Politically the once pro-equality teens have become the very people trying to limit rights to transgender students. Even in the Queer community many of my generation are the ones who are creating discord inside the LGBTQ+ community. Speaking against Transgender people, saying they don’t belong and that there is only Gay, Lesbian, or Bi people. We see this anti-Trans attitude within the feminist movement that is made up of my generation. Women who are fighting for equality but refuse to recognize Trans-women as part of the struggle. We’ve seen a lot of so-called allies, split over what they consider is a man or a woman—rejecting the idea of a spectrum that can encompass all people without a hard definition. This comes many years after the beautiful riots and uprisings that gave us PRIDE.
We X’ers aren’t the coolest generation. We aren’t the most open minded or even the most progressive. Honestly, we aren’t even that tough. Sure, we talk of garden hoses, unsupervised play, and the phenomenon of finding pornography in the woods far too often. The truth is we aren’t all we claim to be. What we really are is a generation that grew up in a time of brokenness, messiness, and growing pangs. Our toughness we claim on Tik Tok to boast about is just a hardened shell due to the lack of resources to allow us to explore our own traumas. Yes, we endured many bad things—many traumas unique and not so much. The problem is we lacked coping skills. We began losing the church due to scandals and abusive predatory behavior. The free love movement was over, AIDS was a real fear, and drugs were increasingly becoming more deadly than in previous generations. So, most just were taught to bite their tongues, swallow the pain, and focus on making money.
None of this made us tough. It made us fucked up and severely damaged mentally and emotionally. This carried over into the early millennials where the plan for adulthood included almost unattainable goals of home ownership, debt free college experiences and a very scratch and dent version of love we were looking for. All this expectation left us clinging to our CD collections and VHS pasts. We were failing not because of our choices but because of a system that was crushing everyone. We were not the stronger generation, in fact once many of us discovered therapy, we found we are quite the opposite. I became aware of deep seeded anger at the church, my elders, and myself. The traumas of violence, sexual abuse, and my self medication left me pretending to be something I wasn’t for survival. I was wound tight, covered in tattoos to keep the monsters at bay, but inside I was a scared little queer kid just wanting to be free. That is not toughness, that is tragic.
The point of this piece is to say that it is okay for Gen X to admit we aren’t that tough. It is time to let go of the unhealthy desire to keep the tough act going because no one cares anymore. Our grunge or punk ethics of solitary strength and individualism has left us very hurting. I am a single 48-year-old Queer man who still thinks I’m 27, partly due to years of living in denial and self-medicating. I see our generations dating profiles, even the weirdoes like me. We are not the picture of stoicism or healthy metal attitudes. We are fucked up. We are broken in all areas of love. We are severely lacking in healthy relationships; thus, we carry with us ghosts of things we need to talk about to heal. I don’t care if you are rich or poor, Queer or straight, it doesn’t matter. We aren’t doing that great, we are in many cases doing our best though. Those of you with kids should be happy to see how open with trauma and healing they are now. The messages of love, acceptance, and equality are stronger now than ever.
The way forward is not to push our nostalgia onto Gen Z or Alpha. It isn’t to make Tik Tok videos telling the world how hard we grew up. Sure, it makes for a funny video, that mainly is just preaching to the choir, but it is inaccurate. If we want to break the generational cycles, we must break ourselves. It’s not about making everything so safe for kids or being helicopter parents. It is about our own mental health and breaking out of the toxic traits of self-reliance, unhealthy work habits, and the idea that we must struggle alone. I would like to have a relationship again with someone but there is a lot of reluctance in age-appropriate peers to get better. Too many of our generation refuse to be vulnerable and then we bash the younger generations for being too sensitive. We can’t see our contrarianism and punching down as a toxicity that is due to our refusal to get help. It’s not easy. The longer we go the harder it gets too, but we need help. What we don’t need is to push John Hughes and the Brat Pack on kids who aren’t remotely interested. Keeping our nostalgia alive isn’t going to save us from ourselves.
Taking a piss on younger people won’t heal our broken hearts or find us a healthy relationship that promotes true intimacy. I just lost a friend in his 40’s, a beautiful gay man, who was a hilarious man I loved. He is one of many loved friends I’ve buried in the past 20 years that came from Gen X or Millennials. Most of them died of preventable circumstances, but due to the programming and toxic cycles that plagued generations before us—no one talked about the reality. So, I’ve lost many to things that we used to cope instead of the things we should have looked for—things like community, therapy, and vulnerability. I’m tired of losing people before I even hit 50. I am also tired of my generation bitching and moaning about our hardships.
We must get out of our own way, take a clue from these young people and open the fuck up before we lose more of us prematurely. It is simply a matter of ego and pride, because we have the resources now. Our tough facade is not cutting it anymore. It is not strength we are showing it is a trauma response to fear and injuries we’ve carried.
“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.”― Fred Rogers
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