We Had MTV Twice

I’m proudly Gen X.

We are the generation that lived through rotary phones, cassette tapes, MTV, CDs, MP3 players, Spotify, and somehow survived all of it with sarcasm as our primary coping mechanism.

A Very Gen X Night

Tonight reminded me of that.

It started with anxiety. The kind where you’re not tired, but you feel like you might jump out of your own skin. So I did what a lot of us do when our nervous systems are overloaded. I kept moving. I mowed the yard. Weed eated. Cleaned the kitchen. Even mowed my retired neighbor Bob’s alley because he recently had Achilles surgery and can’t walk well.

Then I spent an hour looking for my partner Dave’s sunglasses because I borrowed them and couldn’t remember where I put them. They’re expensive “Hummer glasses,” as he calls them. I finally found them, relieved I wouldn’t have to hear about losing them.

Naturally, when he opened the case, one of the lenses fell out anyway.

You survive actual hard things only to nearly lose your sanity over sunglasses and microfiber towels.

By the end of the night, Dave was ranting because my mother accidentally dried his precious microfiber towels with fabric softener sheets. Apparently this ruins the absorbency forever. I told him to wash them again because nobody died.

Meanwhile our adult son Seth and his girlfriend Chloe walked into the house asking if they could store a roadkill possum “specimen” in our freezer.

Not a dead possum.

A specimen.

Dave’s anxiety immediately went through the roof while Seth and I laughed hysterically.

And honestly? That entire sequence feels like the perfect summary of Gen X adulthood.

We grew up in chaos and somehow learned to laugh through it.

The Soundtrack of Growing Up

Earlier in the evening we sat outside listening to Tom Petty Radio on Spotify. Tom Petty and I were both born in Gainesville, Florida, which has always made me feel oddly connected to his music. There’s something about Tom Petty songs that feel like memory itself. Like summer nights, old trucks, freedom, and becoming older without fully realizing it.

The conversation drifted into childhood memories.

Friday nights were Pizza Hut at 6 o’clock, followed by Dukes of Hazzard, Wonder Woman, Knight Rider, The A-Team, Dallas, and Falcon Crest. Our snack was Oreo cookies, milk, and pickles, which sounds absolutely disgusting now but somehow made perfect sense in the 1980s.

Saturday nights were middle school sleepovers with Madonna blasting while we rented horror movies from the video store. Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers. We’d stay awake until 4 a.m. trying to see who could get the most scared.

I remember watching MTV on a giant satellite dish that let me watch the East Coast and West Coast feed. I’d watch music videos twice while driving my parents crazy. Michael Jackson wasn’t just a singer back then. He was an event. We planned evenings around Thriller premieres.

My grandmother was Pentecostal and convinced AC/DC stood for “Anti Christ Devil Crusade.”

Meanwhile my oldest stepbrother drove a ridiculous yellow Ford truck with oversized fenders blasting Highway to Hell loud enough to shake the neighborhood.

That was America.

The Office Before the CEO

I also remembered my little pink record player and the “office” I created in my bedroom. I had a desk with a typewriter, an old rotary phone, carbon copy paper, and a blackboard hanging behind my bedroom door. I played secretary and boss at the same time, creating fake business reports inspired by the TV show Dallas.

Double the work. Story of my life.

When I played teacher, I’d put my hair in a tight bun and wear a dress while giving tests to my giant teddy bears named Brownie and Whitie.

One Sunday at church, my grandfather stopped mid-sermon because I kept waving at him from the front row. When he finally asked what I wanted, I told him I wanted to sing Hymn 333, I’ll Fly Away. He stopped the entire service and let me sing even though my voice sounded like a screech owl.

That memory stayed with me my whole life.

Finding My Way Back to Peace

Tonight, after all the noise and stress and memories, I ended up exactly where I needed to be. On my back porch in expensive Soma pajamas with blues radio playing softly while my doodles waited at the foot of the bed for their bully sticks.

Earlier in the day I felt anxious and overloaded.

By midnight I felt grounded again.

Funny how life works like that.

Sometimes peace doesn’t arrive through silence or perfection. Sometimes it arrives through sunflowers from your bird garden, old songs on the radio, burgers on Memorial Day, stories about your grandparents, and laughing with your family about a fake possum in the freezer.

We Remember Ourselves

And maybe that’s what being Gen X really is.

We’ve lived through multiple worlds in one lifetime.

Analog and digital.
Church hymns and AC/DC.
MTV and Spotify.
Vinyl albums and streaming playlists.
Rotary phones and smartphones.

We remember what life felt like before everyone was reachable all the time.

And maybe that’s why nostalgia hits us so hard.

Because when we remember the music, the TV shows, the old trucks, the pizza nights, and the late-night radio stations, we’re not just remembering entertainment.

We’re remembering ourselves.