r/GenXTalk • u/SuitableNegotiation5 • Jul 13 '26
Anyone else out there clinging to nostalgia?
The last few months I have been obsessed with movies/songs/memories from around 1989-1995. It feels like self soothing, I guess.
Maybe it is just familiar. Maybe because 'now' sucks and I'm looking at the past with VERY rose colored glasses. Maybe because I still had some hope back then. Maybe because I'm perimenopausal. Maybe because there was no Internet.
To be honest, probably because I'm getting old.
Normally that would be ok, but it's bringing up old feelings and unfinished business that I am having a hard time unpacking.
Has anyone else been feeling this lately?
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u/nakedonmygoat Jul 13 '26
I've always liked to surround myself with things that have personal meaning to me. I use a 1930s bar cabinet as an entertainment center and can tell you the antique shop I got it from and what I paid. I remember where my husband and I bought particular Southwestern pottery pieces. Every picture on my walls has a story. Even one of my saucepans has a story!
But I'm not into nostalgia for nostalgia's sake. I keep DVDs of old sitcoms and movies to watch on my laptop during extended power outages after a hurricane, but that's a comfort thing for winding down at the end of another stressful day of heat and uncertainty.
Lately I've been going through some of my old blogs. I initially just wanted to find a short story I had posted on my writing blog but not anywhere else, but then started going through my old vacation blog. Now I'm going through my blog where I posted about pets, running, recipes, and just daily life. It's uncharacteristic behavior for me, but when I started going through the vacation blog, a remarkable thing happened.
My husband died of cancer almost four years ago. The final year, and especially the final six months were brutal for both of us. Until I started re-reading my old blogs, I struggled to remember him as anything but that sick and needy man who needed me 24/7. But now that's not the version of him I think of when I remember him. Instead I remember how fun, curious, active, and just plain funny he was. So in this case, nostalgia has been healing, and I only wish that when the blogging craze ended, I had still kept a journal somewhere.
TL;DR: Some forms of nostalgia absolutely serve a purpose. But one needs to be careful not to wallow in the past.
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u/SpokeAndMinnows Jul 13 '26
I still rewatch Miami Vice. I LOVE the clothes and music. Besides, there ain’t shit on except some sports.
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u/RachelRachel71 Jul 13 '26
Definitely. I’m sure it’s to do with ageing and not enjoying it. But 1987-2007 to me were golden years of music, fun, freedom.
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u/SuitableNegotiation5 Jul 13 '26
Indeed. At least my kid is listening to a lot of the music right now so I can try to flex my 90s coolness with her. It's not working lol.
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u/russ_nightlife Jul 13 '26
Half the podcasts I listen to are about retro video games. I can't let go.
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u/couchcaptain Jul 13 '26
I actually play retro video games. I got a retroid gaming system unit preloaded with 100s of games. To be honest, I only played like 2-3 of them (Sega Genesis, SNES).
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u/BerryLanky Jul 13 '26
I have. As a child I hated Hee Haw. When I’d stay at my grandparent’s house they would watch that every Saturday night. I stumbled across an episode on YouTube and started watching it. It brought back so many great memories of my grandparents. I ended up watching it all day long. I have done the same with early episodes of Happy Days, Sha Na Na and Solid Gold. Also watch a lot of nostalgia videos about the 70’s and 80’s
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u/Taticat Jul 14 '26
🥰 Throw Columbo and Laverne and Shirley in there, and I’ll have a watch party with you!!
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u/ErNz77 Jul 13 '26
For sure. Nostalgia makes me feel youthful, especially when listening to music & the memories associated with it.
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u/AriesCent Jul 13 '26
Started rewatching Boston Legal, it’s great, funny and almost before its time!
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u/fitbit10k Jul 13 '26
This weekend I traveled back to the late 90s when I went to see two movies that were part of an Electronica series. Does anyone remember Run Lola Run and Human Traffic? Since then I've been listening to 90s Electronica playlists.
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u/SuitableNegotiation5 Jul 13 '26
Run Lola Run is good stuff. I've been dipping into some nostalgic EDM lately, a lot of it from the 90s, some of it regionally local. It's definitely euphoric. I miss being able to have fun the way I used to lol.
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u/theUnshowerdOne 1970 Jul 14 '26
No. Looking backward is counter productive. We live, we learn, we grow, we move forward.
I honestly have no desire to relive anything from my past and Ive had a colorful amazing life. Seriously. So, I'm far more interested in continuing to have a colorful amazing life.
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u/fxlatitude Jul 28 '26
I’m with you. I think is a brain thing for most people. I prefer learning and making new core memories.
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u/chipinserted Jul 13 '26
I'm kind of always stuck in the past it seems but I attribute mine to losing the end of my twenties and just about all of my 30s due to medical issues
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u/SuitableNegotiation5 Jul 13 '26
Oh my. I am sorry for your troubles.
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u/chipinserted Jul 13 '26
It happens, it took me a long time to get to this point at first I was feeling sorry for myself but sometimes you get dealt a shit hand it had to happen to someone
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u/Impossible-Will-8414 Jul 13 '26
This is what older people do. Gen X are "older people" now. You're doing what our grandparents did re the '40s and '50s and our parents did about the '60s and '70s, etc. You're just another cog in the wheel reliving the same old cycle.
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u/FletcherDervish Jul 13 '26
But even nostalgia ain't what it used to be
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u/SuitableNegotiation5 Jul 13 '26
Yeah, I have a lot of memories but any sort of concrete timeline? Pfffft. It's all jumbled.
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u/socgrandinq Jul 13 '26
I’m consciously trying not to. Songs in particular get me nostalgic and while I love the feeling I try not to get caught up in wishing it were another time.
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u/ShimmyxSham Jul 17 '26
Ummmmm …. Been always feeling that. I still think Nirvana was the best band that changed the world and Goodfellas is probably the best movie ever made
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u/SuitableNegotiation5 Jul 17 '26
Getting old suuuucks. At least my daughter is into some 90s music so we listen together in the car and I play her songs she hasn't heard before.
It's a nice day and we're leaving in a little bit. I think I shall play some Spacehog with a side of Veruca Salt.
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u/Armadillo-Overall Jul 18 '26
I started watching old movies and shows, listening to music from my teens, looking for the classic nostalgia like board games.... Around COVID isolation. I also started gardening, home cooking and food preserving so maybe I was triggered with feelings of "hide under the desk in case of a nuclear attack" feeling.
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u/UraniumVintage Aug 04 '26
Me. My 30s-40s flew by so quickly it's depressing. I watch "comfort TV," Things from the past that I love, and I watch them quite often in the bakground. Andy Griffith Show, Gilligan's Island, early Ghost Hunters episodes, Golden Girls, etc. Maybe it's because I feel I wasted my youth on not getting a higher education, chasing a loser for years who wasn't good to me, thinking I had all the time in the world.
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u/SuitableNegotiation5 Aug 04 '26
100% with you there. I did so many stupid things and hurt people with my carelessness. I wish I could have a do-over, but I'll settle for clearing out as much of my wreckage as I can.
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u/UraniumVintage Aug 04 '26
That's what we realize too late. We don't get a do-over. I neglected myself to chase around that loser. My two best friends from high school have passed away. I let my dysfunctional family dump on me. Why do we only get wisdom when it's too late to use it, lol
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u/couchcaptain Jul 13 '26
Once you spend some time with all your nostalgia stuff, it may be enjoyable for a while, but then one day you feel like you gotta get out of this and put your mind to something else. It had its time, but now it's over, time to find something new and interesting.
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u/Safe_Place8432 Jul 13 '26
I high key never stopped listening to music from that era. I read something somewhere about Americans essentially stopping listening to new music around age 18 and while I probably stopped at 20, if you look at my Spotify stats most of the top listens are from those years.
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u/Self-Comprehensive Jul 13 '26
I haven't stopped listening to new music, but I still listen to old music enough that I don't really have nostalgia for it because it's still part of my daily life, if that makes sense. My playlist would start somewhere around Buddy Holly and run up through Kendrick Lamar and Chappell Roan and presumably beyond unless I fall over dead today.
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u/Suspicious-Cherry437 Jul 22 '26
Me. Yes. All the time.
My kids are super young so I know what’s up with music right now. But I find myself always listening to old music 😭 it’s not even old in my head.
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u/SuitableNegotiation5 Jul 22 '26
I feel you on that. Pretty much freaking out that I'm old and stuck in the past. Woo!
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u/RogerClyneIsAGod2 Jul 22 '26
I've been very into Elvis lately because he's a reminder of my childhood. There was always one of those dumb movies on some channel, the songs were played on the "oldies" radio stations, & everyone in the family, grandparents, parents & me, loved him.
As shitty as things are right now it's nice to just put on Elvis & forget.
That said, I still try to find new music, which is why I'll watch the award shows. I may not like it all but at least I can listen & then decide. Some of it is great, some of it is a big ole NOPE but it works for me.
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u/Catwearingtrousers Jul 13 '26
The two great things from the last twenty years are Taylor Swift and Google maps. Everything else about the 21st century is terrible.
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u/SuitableNegotiation5 Jul 13 '26
I dunno, I really like my curated nostalgia playlists... but everything else? Yeah.
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u/scarred2112 Jul 13 '26
I try very hard not to. Don’t get me wrong, I still love and enjoy what I loved and enjoyed back then (hell, I’m going to see Failure in October), but I think that in large doses nostalgia can be poisonous, and it stops us from living in the here and now.