1983 (and so on and so forth)

not sure what my eighties self would have thought of friday night's all school eighties dance. I mean, I think she probably would have been fascinated. plus maybe a little mortified but mostly fascinated. I can distinctly remember my preteen self wondering, what are future people even going to think of the eighties? we have no style, no real definitive style. we are nothing like the fifties, the sixties, the seventies. what defines us? I just couldn't see it. because I was living it, I guess. I turned ten in 1980, twenty in 1990, so there you go. I am the eighties.

so, friday night I slapped on my (ahem, original) go-go's pins, yanked my hair into a stupid side ponytail (which I never ever ever would have worn back in the day, by the way) and declared my sloppy self properly attired. oh but to see my daughter wearing the clothes I wore a hundred years ago, the colors, the tights, the mess of pins. to see her at the dance standing next to the boy she likes, to see the sweet, awkward way that all played out. the whole scene made me ache. filled me with the sort of longing that can only be described as ridiculous. and so of course I hid behind my camera the whole night, tried to figure out how I really felt about the whole thing. mostly, I felt old. I tried to pretend I didn't but I felt old.

and I wondered what these dances will look like in twenty or thirty years. what will define the style of the millennials? the 2010s? what pieces of clothing will ava save? what will she share with her own children? what will make her laugh? cringe? and will it make her feel as old as I did friday night? probably.

anyway.

I am still wallowing in nostalgia here which means I will be spinning eighties records all week long and maybe watching john hughes films on repeat. it also means I will be treating my eighties self to a little neon because you know, after friday night, she really sort of deserves it.