90's

The 90s are long gone. Hey, it's 2009, soon to be 2010... I grew up in the '90s, but I barely remember them. I do remember writing 1996,'97,'98,'99 in my notebook for class in grade school, but still, that's not that big. I remember the Eclipse and how people were terrified for the end of the world, I was too, to be honest [I was a kid though]. But look out there: they still are!

I remember the Eclipse and thinking a little bit about the big step we were making, into a new millenium even [I know it started 2001, but that's not the point]. The first 3 letters of the year changed then, and we stepped into the ... present [I wanted to say future but...].

I remember we were poor, really poor then. Not only my family [oh, but we were, we were...] but the whole country. I remember standing in lines at "Alimentara" with my mom [grocery store] to get some food [as much as you could find, and there wasn't much to find, and also as much as we could afford], I remember that not only were bananas rare, but they were also expensive and exotic. Now you can get them in every mini/maxi/super-market [and there are TONS of supermarkets... EVERYWHERE]... Then you could only see them rarely, and never in a defined setting, maybe on street corners...

I don't know if I am melancholic about those times, they were hard for Romania. We were recovering from the communist period [and don't even get me started there], we were poor, in the midst of anarchy, politicians were taking advantage of the situation, people were getting rich at the expense of others [hah, they still do, I know!], my parents weren't getting along too greatly, and well, I'll stop there.

We've gone so far from then...

But I miss it, my childhood. Being able not to have a care in the world, that protective bubble I've been talking about... I miss it... Even though it meant no chocolate, no bananas, an old CRT TV, no computer, no color pictures until 1996 maybe, even if it meant moving from home to home... I was still safer than I feel now... Well, at least I had people I knew were ready to die for me close by [and I would do that for them too :) ], not billions of miles away.

Hm, I started this note with a different purpose in mind then diverged to that. I don't know, it may sound as a bad childhood, but love is the one thing that NEVER lacked, so it was happy, and it taught me to laugh at life. So I miss the 90's, and I don't think I'd like them any other way...

I decided to write this note as I see that many people that were great in the 90s [and 80s] are dead already [Michael Jackson being the latest] and this just screams that those times are gone. In the past. Forever. I am not good with music, and I was never one of those kids who talks about music with her friends [hmm, I'm more of a nerd than that, OK]. But I listen to music, usually whatever's on is good for me, so I know many of MJ's songs, though I didn't know they were his [or couldn't just put my finger on it?] until I listened to them again after his death on youtube. Some, I just discovered. My only real memory of MJ lasts back to 1992 [only 4 at that age], when I saw, on the black-and-white screen of my old CRT TV [that we still have in one of the bedrooms] the news about the concert he had in RO, and the FANS in the airport when he left crying that they'll never see him again. I thought it was absurd, but somehow it just stuck to me. Well, they might be righter today than they were then, but he will never truly die [right now, he's more alive than he has been the past years]. Legends live forever. And, no matter what he might have done [I find it so annoying when people comment shit on youtube videos that I just mark them as spam }:) ] there is a difference between the man and the artist. And the artist was a genius, and the man was a man. Rest in peace, Michael Jackson! You shall live on forever as a great singer.

Also, rest in peace, '90s. You will always be in my heart, until I am no more....

I just love these songs, although Ben is probably not so MJ and more the Jacksons 5...