Credit cards and Red Bull.
Swag.
I was born on a bubble. Okay, well, not like an actual bubble, but on a generational upside-down, in-between, wildcard, not-quite-sure-where-to-put-you, mystery year that was 1980. Not quite Gen-X, not quite Millenial. The creative name the powers that be came up with? Xennials. Nailed it, team. If you meet one of us, you’ll typically know as we exhibit all the telltale qualities of the lost middle children we are. As I see it, there are 3 ways to spot us:
We’re obnoxious about cultural references. Examples: knowing all the filming locations for The Goonies, be either on team Biggie or Tupac, will hear a song and immediately tell you about its music video, have strong opinions on Crystal Pepsi and Jubitz. We also have SO many useless skills that are like social street cred to no one except each other like knowing how to pirate music, burn CDs, and hack yourself to the final level in Mario Bros.
We are eerily pragmatic about the future. Not quite cynical, not quite optimistic, and hovering around hope-adjacent. I think it’s the whole coming into our changing awkward bodies right as the internet was coming online thing. We know life is possible without the internet, we lived it well, and in some ways, we long to go back. We also know how to use technology, so that straddling it all positions us in an ‘open for anything, we’ll adjust’ mentality.
When we watch THIS part of Reality Bites we laugh and cringe because that.was.us.** I have to guess over half of us have a dark period on our credit report around, oh, 1999-2003, where we were drowning in credit card debt. What I wouldn’t give to see a statement at that time. I’m sure charges would range from Papa John’s pizza to my electric company to a George Foreman grill purchased at 2 AM from Walmart where there is a 100% chance I drunkenly pushed my able-bodied friend around in a wheelchair for “fun”. Ooph.
How did this dark credit report era happen you ask? Oh, hold onto your britches because if you didn’t live it you may not believe it. These sleazy mother fuckers would set up a booth job-fair style along major corridors outside your high school and college, staff it with Abercrombie models (points for another cultural reference), and sign you up for one credit card. Want/need more credit cards? No problem, head on down to the next booth where they are also giving out free cans of this new thing called Red Bull that will help you “study”. And just like that, a generation of dumb, horny teenagers who were making $6/hour at their retail jobs was handed thousands of bucks with no supervision just as the first home computers, cell phones, and eCommerce was coming online.
Quick side note I forgot to mention but is very relevant to this shit show. None of us were parented. Like, no one. We were free-wheelers living that ‘be home before the streetlights come on’ lifestyle. I remember taking the bus - by myself - to the mall - for the day - at 9 years old. To this day I have never met a single person from this time whose parents had conversations with them about their credit score. Balancing a checkbook?*** Maybe. We were on our own.
How many peasant tops does it take to get a sub-500 credit score? Just one more.
Full circle, back to the bubble, the qualities of a generation, and why I’m thinking about this today. What it took to pull myself out of that dark financial pit just as I was beginning my life has left me with all sorts of stickiness around money. It’s not quite to the ‘reuse the foil’ levels of the greatest generation in the depression era, but I think it resembles it. I’ve been clear in expressing that I’m furious about the money it costs for health care in America and my gratitude for having it. But that gratitude has a twinge of something resembling survivor’s guilt - that I have insurance and the means to pay for this. I have the means for many reasons but one of them is because I’m so freaked out to spend money on stuff that the stuff sometimes reminds me of the guilt. It’s a whole dumb circle. BUT, as you know, I’m working through some shit and have a newfound bright and shiny perspective thanks to getting a little older, a little wiser, and a little more cancery.
So today, my friends, I took myself out on a little shopping date. The only goal was I couldn’t buy anything that I needed (that includes you, self-help books) and I wouldn’t concern myself with the price. If it made me feel good, that was good enough. I put on clothes that made me feel sexy and fit and free and headed to Ashland for a spree, beginning with a slow walk through the stunning Lithia Park while listening to Tig Notaro’s podcast with Mike Birbiglia and a few hugs from my tree friends. I chatted with a local artist while buying one of her beautiful prints that feels like it was designed just for me at just this time in my life. I tried on many summer dresses and bought one that makes me feel pretty and has pockets AS EVERY DRESS SHOULD. I meandered the farmers market where I saw friends and where I bumped into Evan out on his long solo gravel bike adventure before making a new friend outside Case Coffee where I sipped my iced oat milk matcha and we talked about tattoos and overalls (a true PNW moment). I saw not one but 4 women with shaved heads and we all nodded at one another like motorcycles passing on the highway. My people. There was the co-op for veggies, the plant store for smelling, and the used furniture store where, after years of searching, I finally found the perfect small table to use as a meditation alter for housing all my hippie shit.
Driving home, thinking about what a great day this has been, the question came to me of what would be the perfect amount of time to know you’ll have until you die to get you to change your life. As Jenny Lawson writes, the idea of ‘living like it’s your last day on earth’ is not the way to go because most of us would just be crying and begging ALL the gods to save us. Not chill. My vote is for 5 years; if you have 5 years to live, what would you, what would I, change?
Nothing.
Well, there are a few boxes to check but mostly this life with all its waves, its anger and guilt, its hilarious mishaps and weird pooping issues, all of it intact - this life, I love it. Just give me a good co-op hot bar, a flowy dress with pockets, chatting up friends on curbs, watching cats snuggle in the sunshine, having my heart palpate in excitement when I spot my husband in spandex across a crowd - I mean, yes.
Now, if I just had a Clearly Candian to sip while binging Karate Kid - oh, heaven IS a place on earth.
Arbitrary footnotes:
**These assholes in Reality Bites were basically our Marvel heroes of the age. I watched this movie recently and still found myself weirdly defending Troy and wanting my BFF to be Vickie. Not proud of this. That diner scene though. Is there anything cooler than smoking cigarettes with your girlfriends in a shitty diner than getting a phone call on a corded phone? Ahhh, this is me living out bullet point one above. Obnoxious.
***One way to be boojie back at that time was to have personalized checks with your picture or branded picture on them. If this was you please comment below and maybe I’ll share mine. The cringe runs deep.