Luke Perry & the Mortality of Gen X
Gen X has it tough. Those of us born from 1961–1981 continue to be left off graphics that depict everything from opinions on socialism to who is more burnt out. It seems the most GenX thing is to be forgotten. We are a smaller generation that the other generations, so perhaps when they sort by generation totals, we end up at the bottom, but seriously just expand your infographic! Gen X complaining about being forgotten is part joke, part so typical of the generation who were called “latch-key kids” because we were left to fend for ourselves throughout our lives.
We’re now in our early 50s to late 30s. We are middle-aged. And apparently old enough to die of old people stuff like strokes.
For me Luke Perry’s death hits incredibly too close. My mom died when she was 47. I’m 44. And if you don’t think I am counting down those days until I have outlived my mother, you don’t know how much I obsess over May 8, 2022 — which also happens to be my 23rd wedding anniversary. This is just over 3 years away. I try to keep my anxiety in check by remembering that my mom died of complications from diabetes. So far I have kept that disease at bay. She was diagnosed sometime in her late-30s. It is hard for me to remember a time when she wasn’t battling a chronic illness. Diabetes. Arthritis. For someone who had her kids so young, she was robbed of so much, especially time.
I am also a pop culture junkie. One of my favorite mythologies is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I remember watching the movie in high school. I think it was with Angie. Either way, I do recall us talking about how fun and silly the movie was. Both of us ignorant of how much this mythology would mean to us in just a few years when Buffy was brought to our TVs. See Angie and I were part of the Class of 1993. The same class as Dylan, Brenda, Donna, and Brandon.
Beverly Hills, 90210 was everything in high school. It was our soap opera and I mostly identified with Andrea — the working class student who had to sneak into West Beverly. I was from a working class suburb and by the grace of geography (and I assume integration) I attended an upper class public high school where I often felt like an intruder with classmates whose parents owned car dealerships or literally wrote national economic policy. Junior year I enrolled in a fancy pants English-Arts course. For one project on romanticism I wrote a letter. On the envelope I put the return address zip code as 90210. I vividly recall thinking that it was a perfect thing to stamp my project with even as I struggled with verbalizing what the hell romanticism was to the teacher.
His comments on the likely failing grade included a lecture on using 90210 as a zip code showed my lack of understanding of the topic and immaturity for the project. Yeah, almost 30 years later I still remember that project with the fury of a Valkyrie. Looking back I realize that this teacher was just not attuned to how much our high school and West Beverly were romantic to a working class Latina who was trying her best to climb the ladder to the American Dream. To say the least, 90210 was important to not just high school life, but how I saw social dynamics.
Since my name is Veronica, I am contractually obligated to be a fan of the Archies. Despite that, I rarely read the comics, but do recall the cartoon. When I got online in the late 1990s, instead of using my own photo — because kids, back then everyone thought everyone else online was a serial killer, so you hid behind handles and cartoon images — I used a Veronica Lodge cartoon for my profiles. Thus when I heard that Riverdale was going to be a thing, I was excited. When I saw that Dylan, aka Luke Perry, was going to play Archie’s dad I was psyched!
I love-hate this show so much. After the first season, the plot lines are so ridiculous we need a new term besides “jumping the shark.” But Dylan as Fred Andrews is the rational counterpoint to his non-thinking son. Hell Fred seems to be the only rational person in the entire town. And now he’s gone. Seriously, CW, do not even try to recast. Just let Fred die with Luke.
This whole rambling post is to show you how this one Gen Xer is emotionally attached to an actor, a character, a moment that seems like yesterday. But it was 30 years ago and now we find ourselves in middle age dealing with slowed down metabolism, adjusting to our progressive lenses, and cheering each other through mammograms. Many of us have kids who are now at the age when Dylan came into our lives. Our kids know Dylan as Fred.
And now he is dead at 52.
WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN FOR THE REST OF GEN X?
I admit that is what is going through my brain. I can sense it in the comments of others on Facebook and Twitter. When his stroke was first reported, I commented to a friend that I’m not ready for GenX Hollywood to start dying from old people diseases even though I know, as the National Stroke Association says, strokes can happen at anytime. I wonder how many visits their risk factor page is getting since last week. Stroke awareness PSAs are now running or maybe I’m just noticing.
An older friend of mine commented on Facebook that you start to feel old when your friends start to die. This is as close as I have come to that milestone. It is one thing for your celebrity crush to die in an accident or overdose, but a stroke? At 52?! I have never felt the weight of mortality and my age more than on this day.
I hate this feeling! We are Gen X. We built the internet. The New Kids on the Block just released a new video for Pete’s sake! We bring our kids to Lollapalooza and when they got old enough , we bought them a ticket to go with their friends. We’re the generation that lets our kids dye their hair blue in 4th grade. Jagged Little Pill is now a Broadway show. Many of us learned from the chaos of the 80s and instead of shielding our kids from depictions of frank sexuality, watch Jane the Virgin with our teens and use it to discuss healthy relationships. We are not old.
And yet, I have just about three years to go to reach an age my mom never saw. And then another 5 years to reach an age older than Luke. We may not be old, but we are getting there.
