Smells Like Aqua Net

Still blogging away alongside three other talented bloggers.  Each week, one of us chooses a topic and we all post a blog entry on that topic, usually on Thursdays.  (Usually we are on time.  Usually.  Ok, sometimes.)

Here are the links to the other fabulous blogs:

Merryland Girl

Froggie 

Moma Rock  

Merryland Girl chose this week’s topic, two simple words:  The Nineties.           

            My first thought:  Ah, that decade.

I’ve always considered the Nineties as a somewhat amorphous decade.  It’s never struck me as having the same depth of identity as its predecessors:  the Sixties, the Seventies, and, everyone’s fav decade, the Eighties.  Those earlier decades pulsed with life, they surged with color.  They had a feel.  Like, when someone says, “The Sixties,” certain images immediately come to mind, right?  Flowing-haired flower children.  Scads of illegal drugs.  Funky folk rock.  Charles Manson.  (No?  Just me, then?)  And the Eighties?  Same thing.  In your mind’s eye you see big, permed, Aqua-Netted hair.  Smudges of blue eye shadow.  Tight jeans.  Flashdance sweatshirts.  In your ear, you hear OMD, Bonnie Tyler and, of course, Bon Jovi.  But the Nineties give me pause.  Not much stands out.  Hmmm . . . did Beverly Hills 90210 start in the Nineties?  And maybe Blossom?  I think people wore shoulder pads?  Were pearls in fashion?  And big gold earrings?  Oh, yeah, I remember:  that’s the decade grunge came in and killed hair metal by smothering it in plaid flannel and stomping on it with waffle-soled boots.  Beyond that, I draw a bit of a blank.

            I realize that because I am the oldest member of the blogging group, my memories of the pre-Nineties decades are sharper.  I was old enough to dress the part – or to at least watch and remember as my slightly older family members did.  I don’t remember the Sixties, but I do recall my cousins and six-years-older-than-me sister wearing the bell bottom jeans and clogs of the Seventies.  I myself donned the Sergio Valentes, Bonnie Bell Lip Smackers, and feathered hair of the Eighties, as I was a ‘tween when the decade began and I was determined to fit in, dammit.  Good or bad, I came of age in the Eighties, and I have the amusing photos to prove it.  For that reason, I suppose, the Eighties left their indelible mark upon my psyche in a way the following decades simply did not and could not.  “Yes,” I sigh deeply, “the Eighties . . . ”  Truly, after the Eighties, the decades began to blur, one right into the next. 

            Then, too, because I was “of age” in the Nineties, the decade’s effect was different on me than that of its predecessor.  I was struggling to find who I was as a person, and thus I was less game to just jump into whatever trend was in style, less eager to just go with the flow and follow.  Yes, I’m sure I owned a few shoulder-padded shirts and jackets, but I wore my hair long and big, as was the style of the Eighties, a decade I hadn’t yet voluntarily relinquished.  I’ve never really gotten over my love of blue jeans; even though some black leggings found their way into my closet, they never really had my heart.  (And the ZCavaricci’s of the Nineties made everyone look like we took steroids!)

            I suppose we hold on to those decades that define us, the ones where we begin to grow into who we are hoping to become.  The Nineties wasn’t that time for me, though I’m guessing it was for Merryland Girl, who was then in college.  The Nineties weren’t in any way bad, but they did bring tremendous change for me, developments that catapulted me into adulthood.  In that decade, I graduated college, moved to Los Angeles, moved back to Chicago, got married, had my first child, and enrolled in and attended law school.  Perhaps I was just too busy to notice what people were listening to or watching or doing or wearing.  Or maybe flannel just wasn’t my thing.

I used to cringe at the photos of my decade:  the wild hair, the electric make-up, the ubiquitous turned-up collars, the Cyndi Lauper glam.  But now I see those photos for what they are, reflections of a rite of passage, slices of time, mementos from the road that led me from adolescence to adulthood.  Is there a more fun, more self-centered, more change-filled period than those ‘tween and teen years?  Perhaps.  But, for me, none that came after were filled with so much vibrancy, so much learning, so much life.  Not really.  And so, today, those once mortifying pictures make me smile.  They remind me of an easier time, a time of discovery, of trial and error, of some pretty great music, some pretty bad hair, and some really good memories.

Sorry, Nineties, but I guess your shoulder-padded, pearl-draped, gold-plated fabulousness came just a little too late for me.