Heart and Mind

Decade Fun

I was just thinking about how in two short months, it will be the year 2010. So that will mean the "zeros" era, or whatever you want to call this decade that came with the "new millennium," will be over. And here's something sobering. That will mean I have lived in five different decades in my lifetime. Wow, five! And you know what? I was born at the very beginning of the 1970s... so people who were born in the late 1960s a year or two before I was (people who are considered my peers) will be able to say they've lived in six decades. Hey, your age may be just 40 or 41 or so, but you will be able to truthfully say you've been a part of six decades. Does this make you feel old?

The funny thing about the decades changing is that it always feels a little weird. Now, if you're about my age, you will likely relate to what I'm about to say. And if you're not, you likely still will relate to this stuff, but what I might describe as, say, my 1980s might be your 1960s or your 1990s. It's all just relative.

But as a kid who was born in the early 1970s, when the decade ended, I remember thinking, "Wow, I can't believe it's 1980!" It seemed so futuristic, because the only thing I ever knew was years that began "Nineteen-Seventy..." To me, that was the definition of a year's name. "Well, they start out with the phrase 'Nineteen-Seventy,' and then you add a number after it." But it was exciting. It seemed new and fresh, like I was a part of something very big. But I couldn't really picture life beyond the concept of maybe 1981 or 1982. I remember doing the math and figuring out that I would be graduating high school in 1989, and it seemed unfathomably far into the future. Like a million years away. In theory, I understood it, but it seemed a lifetime into the future. As the years crept through, I remember thinking how weird it felt: "Wow, I can't believe it's 1986! Aren't the eighties the 'new thing' that just started?"

When the 1980s ended, it was odd and discomforting, because that was the decade I grew up in. I didn't like everything about the decade, but I couldn't argue that it was the decade of my youth. I was in 3rd grade when they started and in college when they ended. I was a little kid in the 1970s, but I grew up in the 1980s. I couldn't help but love, "I Love the Eighties" on VH1, even if I disliked much of the movies, music, and fashions they discussed on there. I had to love it simply because I was there, living it as a teenager.

So the 1990s seemed odd. I had great times in the 1990s—college, met my wife, road tripped a lot, found a career, bought a house—but felt zero connection to the "concept" of the decade. The "I Love the Nineties" series lacks emotional and nostalgic pull for me. I don't remember half of what they talk about because I wasn't particularly paying attention, and what I did remember I usually didn't like and felt a sense of disconnect with. To me, the 1990s seemed "after." After what? I don't know. "It." Whatever "it" was, they were after it. It was after the fact. It's, of course, entirely related to the vantage point of when I grew up, but the 1990s felt like we already finished the modern classic era, and now we were just adding faceless years on.

When the 1990s ended, it was weird for a few reasons.

First, because the decade, for me, seemed culturally to be the wasteland that happened after the fact, it was shocking to think that this "modern" and uninteresting time was about to become "history," on it's way to being classic, like other bygone decades.

The second reason was simple. It was the end of the frieken' century! I have to admit, they called it the "new millennium," but the millennium angle didn't strike as close to home as the arguably more humble century angle. But I really can't even have the slightest concept of 1000 years ago when years were only three digits. But much in the same way as a child my understanding was that years started "Nineteen Seventy," as an adult, it was still weird to think that there would be modern years that didn't start with the digits "19." If you were there, you should know what I mean. Checks and forms that had places to fill in dates used to say "19___," with the first two digits pre-printed. Hey, we can assume all years start with "19," and every person I ever personally knew, even my grandparents, were born in years that started with "19." And now that was all changing.

And I think everyone who lived significantly pre-2000 can relate to the idea that 2000 was almost futuristic. We all did the math to find out how old we were going to be when the year would finally get here. (I was going to be 28, I remember determining.) I remember as a kid asking my father whether he'd be alive in the year 2000. (To me, it seemed so far away that I figured he might be elderly or something.) His response was, "I sure hope so!" (He was 54 when they started.)

I guess the 2000s were even more uninteresting to me than the 1990s (culturally, if not technologically and otherwise), but I had a more amicable relationship with them. In the 1990s, I think part of me was annoyed by youth culture knowing that I didn't fit in with it or agree with it anymore. But in the 2000s, I was feeling more like, "Of course I don't feel a connection to this silly era. I'm in my frieken' 30s for Crissakes!"

And here they are ending already, and we're getting ready for the next decade, number five for me. They all sort of blur together now.

posted by Steve @ 9:09 PM