Hey, Gen X: It's OK to Cry

How Recent Gen X Losses Hit Harder

Image credit: Fox News

The first celebrity death that felt like a gut punch was Luke Perry. I was teetering on turning 50 and his sudden passing brushed at my mortality. Dylan McKay was part of my college routine. Back in the day 90210 was so racy compared to today’s television we called it “the s*x show”. And no one exuded more appeal than Luke Perry.

Fast forward and the news that his colleague, Shannen Doherty, has passed from breast cancer. She was more than Brenda Walsh, to me she was Jenny Wilder from Little House on the Prairie. Her character was a little girl lost out of grief and pioneer living, at least from my young perspective. A fighter to the end, Shannen’s passing marks another celebrity my generation clung to for attention we didn’t feel we received outside the TV screen.

As Exhibit A for Gen X, I am stoic. When my mom passed, I didn’t shed a tear at her funeral. Sure, the body in the casket didn’t faintly look like her, but hours later when my nephew suggested we watch Pixar’s Up, fifty years of dammed-up emotions broke free. I was absolutely wrecked, something my nephew notes even today.

I read in Jess Connolly’s Tired of Being Tired something to the effect that often we become emotional watching movies or TV because we don’t allow ourselves to feel in real-life situations. Gen X, raise your hands. Because that sure describes us.

I remember, again, watching Little House as an adult trying to process why did this show mean so much to me as a kid. I didn’t see Michael Landon without his shirt on episode after episode, I was a little girl watching a father embrace his daughters. That was foreign in our house for a lot of reasons. Laura got to tell her bully off, something I was of course instructed not to do. That show was an outlet. A safe place.

As a teen, I saw Ferris Bueller in the theater. The only person I knew going in the theater were my friends. When I left, I was part of a family. Everyone in that theater spent an hour or so cheering, laughing, and singing together as an experience. I’ve never had that happen since.

My parents are gone, and my peers are either in the same boat or having conversations about aging parents. You can try to prepare, but you can’t. For Gen X, I find it especially heartbreaking. I’m a Reddit reader. I can’t count how many posts from my age group share the abuse and/or neglect their parents dished out for decades, and how these children, now emotionally stunted fifty-somethings, are left feeling even lonelier.

To add salt to those forming tears, at least for me, is the fact those celebrities we grew up with are aging right with us. Some, like Dick Van Dyke, are father figures, or even grandpas that gave such joy in a home life that might have been anything but. To read about his eventual passing should I still be around will gut me.

Same for Carol Burnett. Her show was the one thing I can think of our entire family experienced together that was consistently happy. We all laughed. Dad was an easy giggle, but Mom? Getting her to crack a smile during a comedy bit was a feat. I hold Carol Burnett up not as an idol but as one I’d love to say thank you to. When her last day arrives, it will effectively be the bookend to my family memories.

Since this is about surrendering, I know given my background and how I process, I will feel emotions when these celebrity passings come. They are happy ribbons tied to my shaky past, not because anything was outright horrific, but as a Gen X’er, it wasn’t really anything. We didn’t talk. We didn’t feel. Sometimes, we were forgotten. It wasn’t malicious, it just was how it was.

If you are Gen X and relate to anything here, I encourage you to buy the tissues. When you learn of a celebrity passing, don’t be ashamed to cry if that person touched your life. If you are one about to walk the lonely forest of loss of a loved one, don’t stuff those feelings. You don’t have to “chin up” or silence your feelings. Have a good cry. Turn on those old shows that brought comfort back in the day. And if you’re like me, there’s no shame on a grief day if you enjoy your share of Famous Amos cookies in between sobs while watching Up. And whatever you do, don’t watch Bambi or Old Yeller.