The “Old Days”, Youth, and Carefree Music

I’ve recently had conversations about getting older (something I NEVER imagined myself talking about with anyone!), and they’ve made me think…  Were the “old days” really better?  Or do we just miss our youth?

I am a GenXer, a child born to Boomer parents between 1965 and 1980.  As an Xer, we were the last generation to have to change the channel manually on the television, the last generation to exist without cable, the last generation to have only one landline phone in almost every home, the last generation to use a pay phone as the norm.  We were the last generation to play with lawn darts (yes, these were really a thing!), the last generation to burn the backs of our legs on the metal slides on the playground, and the last generation to accept smoking, if not embrace it.  We didn’t have helmets when we road our bikes around the neighborhood, and we didn’t wear seatbelts when we were in the car (somehow Mom always knew when to throw that arm across our chest to hold us back!).  We were the last generation to walk to and from school as the norm.  We were the last generation to play outside with our friends until the streetlights came on.  We were the last generation who didn’t receive participation trophies, who felt the disappointment when we didn’t excel at something. 

We were the first generation that often had two working parents, or for those who lived with unmarried parents, the first generation to come home after school to an empty house.  We were the first generation to embrace the internet and cell phones (back when they were the size of briefcases!).  We were the first generation where more of us could not drive a manual transmission than could.  We were the first generation to move away from home in large numbers.  We were independent and strong because we had to be.  We learned street smarts along with our school classes because we had to learn them. 

So that brings me back to my original question about whether or not the “old days” were really better.  Honestly, I don’t think so.  Well, except for the music and the movies anyway.  Those were definitely better.  I think that we miss our youth.  I know I do.  I miss the days of sleeping all day and playing all night, not having bills to pay, wandering the mall for hours with my friends.  I miss the days of being a size 2, in spite of eating Taco Bell and Big Macs like a freed hostage!  I miss the days when the worst thing that could happen was the boy I had a crush on didn’t check “Yes” on the note I passed him in school. 

I don’t miss dragging my French horn along with my backpack the half mile to my house after school.  I don’t miss hot afternoons on the third floor in a building with no air conditioning.  I don’t miss having to get up and change the station to watch something else.  I don’t miss huge long-distance bills from calling home after moving out.  I don’t miss the leg burns on the metal slides, and I don’t miss the cigarettes.  I’ve even gotten comfortable wearing my seatbelt!  I don’t miss not having a dishwasher or a microwave because they make life a little easier.  I don’t miss having to sit in front of the stereo for hours, waiting for the one song I wanted to put on my mix tape, only to miss the beginning because I didn’t hit record fast enough…  isn’t iTunes a wonderful thing?  I don’t miss floor furnaces, nor do I miss the burns you get when you walk on them or sit on them.  The best thing about that was once you did it once, you never did it again! 

Sometimes, I miss the simplicity of a life without all the devices and the internet.  I miss not knowing what happened in another city, unless it was something terribly horrific, like a volcanic eruption or an earthquake.  I miss the days of the schoolyard bully, instead of the internet bully.  Back then, you knew who your nemesis was and what they wanted.  Now, they hide behind a keyboard, so you never know if they are real or not.  I miss the safety of my parents’ home, even though I couldn’t wait to leave it back then.  I miss having them there to give me just enough freedom to get myself into trouble, but usually catching me before I did. 

I don’t miss walking to school in the cold and in the rain, but I miss being able to be as carefree as I was back then … and I miss the music that was as carefree as we were.