Still Riding on My 50th. Ice Shoveled (Damn Adulthood), Weekend, and Seriously Thinking about Being Generation X...Classes 1985 to 1992.

I guess it is wild to be at an age where reflection is still a key to figuring out what it's all supposed to mean. I spent a snow day wrapping up projects, beginning new ones, and ending in nostalgia as a result of photographs (thanks, Rose Brock), and now I am thinking historically and as a documentarian. What would it look like to have a collage of school-aged photographs aligned to 'where we are now' - the K-12 stuff, skip the 20s, 30s, 40s, and boom, the 50s? The formative years are the first 18, but there's so much life that follows. What do we think now about all that growth then?

There was nothing more ritual than end-of-the-year yearbooks, the photographs, signatures, and bonanza of socializing over grade-stamped capsules of time, and I wonder if this generation has such habits. We were pre-video, maybe some with video cameras, but our years were defined by sending film to the local drugstore to be developed and returned a week later, with half not coming out. Who we were depended on what came back to us after a week of waiting (and if we could scrape up enough money to print what we captured from our cameras).

I am, because we are. But who were we?

I was thinking about this last night looking at yearly imprints from a graduate in the class of 1989, and it hit me....different states, different regions, different rituals, but part of a period of time that is likely to be drastically different than adolescents experience today. Same drama. Same angst. Same rebellion. Same mischief, but we were team MTV, cassette tapes, out-of-town-parent parties and definitely not where we are today with Twitter, Tik Tok, Facebook, and 24/7 embarkment of images, opinions, and news. Was it innocent? Naivety? Luck? Has it all just become tragic?

I honestly think about kids today in the same location as we once were and wondering, "what are the similarities? The differences? And how does history and location play a role in the narratives we tell ourselves?" I'm really curious.

I have fond memories of the nostalgia shared by Butch and Sue as we went through their yearbooks giggling at the photographs, stories, and ridiculousness that came from the way such images entrapped a period of time. Now, at 50, I'm thinking, "Shit. We had it, too." I'm simply mesmerized and curious where my generation currently is, post Big Chill, St. Elmo's Fire, Party of Five, Beverly Hills 90210, Cosby's, Roseanne and how cable turned to this world of Netflix. 

Dang. I want these stories. Not the ones we told when we were there, but how we think of them right now. 

I mean, I was there for The Real World,  followed by Road Rules, and at the time, I thought we'd always be in our early 20s, coming of age post baby boomers, hippies, and yuppies. I also think we were the last generation of innocence....or were we?

I guess I am thinking, arrogantly, that our small pocket of people...1985 to 1992 (let's give it 7 years of time) really are united by unique history. If I didn't have to teach, work, and be committed to what I am, I'd really like to set out to explore this. 

Given the chaos of right now, might I say that we were the last safe and sheltered generation? Is there a point where suddenly times turned traumatic and outrageous as they are right now. We were pre-Jerry Springer, but now it seems every day is another episode of dysfunction. I want this documented, as I'm sure every generation does.