I'm 39 and my heart ACHES for the nineties.

[leeroysphitz]

What the fuck is wrong with me?

I have a beautiful family that I love and adore but I could leap back into June's sweaty skin doing the pub crawl from Lindas to La Terraza and then over to Saint A's and then back to the pink house and finally back to Franklin Street to grab a calzone from Moses at Pepper's...


My heart really aches. I miss these things so badly...

[LostInAnomie]

1. The 90's were a pretty kick ass decade.

[leeroysphitz]

7. LOL. Yeah.

Where is Glen Danzig when you need him?

[Lex]

2. Chapel Hill?

Linda's and Pepper's and Franklin Street.

That was happening the 80's too! :hi:

UNC '87

[leeroysphitz]

13. Yeah. Chapel Hill. It was a fine place to live and I miss it.

[RoyGBiv]

3. What's wrong with you?

You're 39.

So am I, and 40 is bearing down rapidly.

I've found myself pondering my 20s quite a lot lately.

[leeroysphitz]

8. I kind of want to WEEP alot lately....

Anything can set it off. Cocteau Twins, The Veldt, Juno, Trip Shakespear, Ben Folds etc...
:(

[RoyGBiv]

11. I hear ya ...

I started in with what is traditionally known as a mid-life crisis about a year and a half ago ... had a complete breakdown and haven't really recovered from it yet.

I've found myself in the past couple months making what are for me some rather radical decisions about the course my life is going to take in the next few years. This is on top of a really radical decision (again for me) I made about a year ago that put me where I am now.

Movies and, especially, books are where I seek refuge, and I've discovered I've been re-reading a lot of things, more than usual. Regardless of what else I'm reading, I read Lord of the Rings habitually, a tradition I started in my 20s, a few pages a day. The other day I was reading the part where the Riders of Rohan show up, and I got highly emotional ... while just sitting there eating lunch and reading.

So, as I said, I hear ya. You're not alone at all, and you'll get through it. There's nothing actually wrong with you. You've just reached a point in life where there's a lot to look back on.

[smalll]

4. You don't miss the 90s per se; you miss your youth.

There's really nothing much that separates the 90s culturally and or aesthetically as a decade from the 2000s. We live in the 90s forever right now.

You just miss being able to go out and drink. Not knowing you, I'm guessing you got married and had kids. I'm just a year older than you. I can still go out and drink. But then, I never got a wife. Tradeoffs. Grass always greener, and all that.

[Flaxbee]

5. yup. 39 here, too

and I feel like I really needed to make some different decisions. Oh well.

It is hard not to slip into the melancholy, I have to sedate myself with DU or books or whatever to keep from yearning for those years of opportunity.

[leeroysphitz]

9. Years of Opportunity.

The definition of youth.

[sammythecat]

6. Restlessness of spring fever?

It might be more odd if you didn't have yearnings for those days. My 20's were spent in the 70's and I didn't marry until I was 29. It was pre-AIDS, pre-drug screening, pre- a whole bunch of stuff, and nearly anybody could get decent job. Being young, friends, girlfriends, weeknight parties, any dream was possible, what's not too miss?

It's only natural to long for the good times past. They're not the only good times in our lives, but just like the others, they were unique. That's part of the appeal and part of the problem because no matter what happens, or what we do now, those times can never, ever, be recreated. They're as gone as a dead loved one.

I tend to get to wordy sometimes, so I'll say no more except that I do hope this longing is just nostalgia and not some deep dissatisfaction. It sounds like you've got a whole lot of good things going on for you right now.:-)

[leeroysphitz]

12. I know you are right but It HURTS to think of those years.

It hurts and hurts and hurts and I know that if I ever drove back down there all I would find is another Wal-mart and another Old Navy...

I know it's all over and I just get bummed out. Maybe Pepper's is still there. Maybe all the wait staff from the mid eighties is still there. Maybe Moses would still recognize me but now, ten years on, I'm 39 but I feel like a 29 year old who got robbed of a decade or two...

Everyone who pushes 40 must feel this way but this is getting problematic. I feel like I just left Chapel Hill last week. It's all so paradoxically sudden...

[Arugula Latte]

20. You know, it's kind of sad how an insurance co. ad really captured what you're saying.

Those Nationwide "Life Comes at You Fast" ads just hit home with me, I have to admit. It seems like we're young and then, bam, youth is gone forever. I not only grapple with my own youth being over (although I still think I look pretty well preserved :) ), but I'm grappling with how quickly my children are growing up. As INXS sang, there's nothing to stop the thief of time.

It's all part of the human experience.

[Lorien]

10. I'm 43 and I miss the early 70's

Not so much because I miss being a kid (I don't), but I miss the Liberal culture of the city I grew up in. I had a family then, and I don't now.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

14. Yo! Old Fart!

You need to buy a sports car. Red. It'll cure what ails ya!

Or a motorcycle. A real loud one, that'll echo off the buildings downtown.

:hi:

[rcrush]

15. Heres some of that crazy 90's gangsta rap.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBu2uxdvNmI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4RY-eJgHHs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x5Olen_1co

[taterguy]

16. Close your eyes and click your heels three times

Enjoy your calzone

[CrownPrinceBandar]

17. I'm right there too..........

I'm 41, and the 90's were my halcyon days. They were the days of movement in my life. I lived in both New Orleans and Austin back in the 90's and I long for a plate of beignets at Cafe du Monde, or a chilly Margarita from Jovita's.

You know, back in the day (the eighteenth century), nostalgia was treated as a serious medical condition. Its fallen out of fashion as a medical condition, but I can tell you that it hurts just as bad.

Good luck. If you find something that works to abate the pain, lemme know.

[WilliamPitt]

18. Newt Gingrich. Bob Dole. Whitewater. Ken Starr. Monica Lewinski.

Better?

;) (37)

[Arugula Latte]

19. I have reoccurring dreams that I am back at Berkeley, young, and

life's possibilities stretch before me in an endless pageantry.

Common problem of the middle aged, I guess.

That said, I have a fantastic husband and kids. Having children has been the adventure of my life; words can't express how much they have enriched my life and brought me pride and joy. I am so grateful I have them; I didn't have them when I was footloose and fancy free and bopping around San Francisco.

[tigereye]

21. I'd take a ride back to the late 70s - great music years

but I'd want to take my current knowledge and equanimity with me...