Living in the Past

I am a child of the 80s, a decade of contrasts. On the one hand, outstanding music (if you don’t like it, I don’t care), and on the other, fashion statements and hairstyles that would probably be best forgotten. I was reminded of both yesterday after discovering a wonderful link to hundreds of 80s music videos. I reminisced through viewings of Scritti Politti’s Perfect Way, singing along (quietly) to the Psychedelic Furs, and tapped my toes to And We Danced, by The Hooters, to name but a few. Aaaah, bliss. And of course, such joy is not limited to the music from my coming-of-age years, but also to the movies and the television shows of this gone-but-not-forgotten era. Who could forget such classics as The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and virtually every other Brat Pack film? What teenage girl didn’t envy Molly Ringwald for always beating the odds and getting the cute guy at the end? With half the population of the United States running around saying, “Whatchu talkin’ about, Willis?”, and the other half running around trying to figure out the words to “Pass the Dutchie” and “Come On Eileen”, the 80s were glory days indeed.

The 80s were happy, more innocent times, where no one worried about planes being flown into buildings, toxic white powder being sent through the post, or people not being able to accompany their loved ones to the airport gate. We wore our hideously loud, patterned (remember paisley?), oversized shirts with no fear, went preppie (remember the pink and green combo, Izod shirts with the collars up?) with no immediate concerns for our safety. They were good years for growing up. Our parents weren’t afraid to let us be outside after dark during lazy summers, nor were they worried when we wandered around the mall with friends, boys and girls eyeing each other over the 45s in the record store.

Oh, how the times have changed. Here I am, twenty years older and about a hundred years wiser, and to say that I’m troubled by the times in which we live would be an understatement. Today’s youth are far savvier than I could ever hope or want to be, robbed of their innocence at increasingly younger and younger ages. I long for the good old days, before violence became so normal, before drugs became so prevalent, before coffee became so expensive.

And now, it seems I may have to chance to go back, at least in a sense. Without me noticing, it seems that my twenty-year high school reunion has crept up on me, and will be held this summer. To my great fortune (though Husband is clearly less keen), it coincides with our annual trip to the US to visit family and friends, and I find myself greatly looking forward to the reunion events. I look forward to catching up with old friends, and to showing everyone how far I’ve come. I look forward to seeing how people have changed, who they’ve married, how they’re doing. I look forward to showing off my little family. Ever since the reunion was announced, there’s been a flurry of emails between old classmates, and the excitement is steadily growing. One thing that I find kind of scary is how many of them still live in the area where we grew up, how many of them are still friends who regularly spend time together. Some of them are parents of children who go to school together, and even run into each other at school sporting events. Some of them are high school sweethearts, miraculously still together twenty years later, which is just amazing.

I can’t wait to take this trip down memory lane, to remember the good times from my youth (while conveniently forgetting the bad times, of course!), to dance to the songs that we danced to twenty years ago, to laugh about simpler times and long gone bad hair days.

“What a long strange trip it’s been…”