Gen X Aging More Gracefully Than Anyone Because We Never Thought We’d Live This Long Anyway

Generation X is superior in ways so obvious they shouldn't need enumeration. And yet here I am, shouting into the void while my generational peers silently judge my enthusiasm (as a millennial cusp, it’s only natural):

1. 🌚 We raised ourselves.🔐 Not because our parents were negligent but because they hadn't yet invented helicopter parenting. We had the last truly unsupervised childhoods in human history, which is why I still know how to entertain myself without WiFi. I learned to make nachos at age seven and haven't looked back since.

2. 🗺️ We're the last people who can fold a paper map and use a compass.🧭 An essential skill that's become as obsolete as knowing Latin, but infinitely more useful when driving through Los Angeles canyons where cell service mysteriously vanishes. I navigate Mulholland Drive (from Encino to Cahuenga Pass Aka: raincloud fog gulch) with nothing but intuition while my millennial passengers panic.

3. 💻 Our adolescent humiliations remain safely undocumented.🤳🏼 My fashion crimes are entombed in photo albums, not enshrined eternally on Instagram. My teenage poetry exists only on paper that I ceremoniously burned after my third divorce. You're welcome, internet.

4. I possess an extinct form of patience. I waited actual hours by the radio to record a single song. No generation that grew up with the instant gratification of Spotify could possibly understand this particular form of dedication. I once spent an entire weekend capturing the perfect Rick Astley track, only to have my sister record over it with Debbie Gibson.

5. I straddle the technological divide perfectly. I operate comfortably in both the analog and digital realms, like a cultural amphibian who can breathe underwater but also walk on land. I fixed my own VCR and now I fix my parents' Wi-Fi while explaining TikTok to them.

6. I witnessed history's most rapid technological transformation. I was born with rotary phones and now carry a supercomputer in my pocket. Los Angeles went from being accessible only by Thomas Guide to being navigable by satellites in the span of my lifetime, yet I still get lost trying to find the Trader Joe's in Silver Lake.

7. I'm among the last people who remember life before the internet but young enough to adapt to it. I'm like the native translator European explorers relied upon, except I translate between Boomers and TikTok. My mother still calls me to ask how "Google knows."

8. I perfected ironic detachment while secretly caring deeply. I invented eye-rolling as communication but will also silently show up when you need help moving. I've helped six friends move in one summer while complaining about it the entire time.

9. I don't need to announce my presence. Most of Generation X neither demands attention nor receives it. I, however, am the exception that proves the rule. I'm running everything behind the scenes.

10. I'm supporting three generations simultaneously. Caring for aging parents while raising children while explaining to both why neither understands the other. I'm a generational diplomat without diplomatic immunity. My mother thinks TikTok is a breath mint, and my daughter thinks email is for "ancient people."

13. I endured technological puberty. I survived the awkward adolescence of the internet. If you've never waited 45 minutes in 1993 to download a single JPEG that turned out to be completely different than what was promised, you don't understand disappointment. My first AOL chat room experience ended with me being kicked out for typing too slowly.

12. I refuse to participate in generational warfare. I'm too busy being productive while everyone else argues about avocado toast and participation trophies. Though I will occasionally shout "OK BOOMER" at my father when he asks me to fix his printer for the fifteenth time.

13. I'm among the last generation that developed natural boredom immunity. I stared at ceilings and counted ceiling tiles without having existential crises. The daydreaming I perfected on Los Angeles hikes created more creativity than any TED Talk ever will. Fuck TED and his talks. I once spent an entire summer cataloging cloud shapes.

16. I'm among the last people who know how to be unreachable. I remember when "out" meant actually being unavailable, not just ignoring texts. This makes me part of the last generation capable of genuine solitude, the prerequisite for original thought. Though I now compulsively check my phone every three minutes like everyone else.

I'm not clamoring to be called the greatest generation because having to insist you're the best automatically proves you aren't. I'll just continue loudly keeping civilization functioning while everyone else debates pronouns and cryptocurrency, occasionally stopping to remind them all who invented grunge music and ironic t-shirts.