Nostalgia and Weighted Blankets

We have reached the point where the stressors of modern life are all too apparent and triggering, and as a result, my generation craves nostalgia. I believe this is why shows like Stranger Things have gained so much popularity. I, for one, absolutely love Stranger Things. The music, the clothes, and the fantastical plot lines, like appeal of the retail dinosaur of our near past – an actual functioning mall –begs for older millennials and gen x-ers to curl up under their weighted blankets and through the foggy glass of time (or wine) recall their childhoods. I also adore the Lethal Weapon movies, and I looove every John Hughes movie ever made.

But there is another set of fabled tales that will always remain dear to me and most of my female peers. These stories shaped my childhood. Gather round, my children. For our story begins in a distant land called Stoneybrook, Connecticut.

Yep, I’m talking about the Babysitter’s Club. The Babysitter’s Club books, written by Ann M. Martin, followed a group of preteen best friends and their adventures babysitting around their hometown, of, yes, Stoneybrook, Connecticut. I. Was. Obsessed. Looking back, the books were ever so much more fictional that little preteen me could fathom. I mean, can you imagine leaving your infant child in your house alone, overnight with just a 12-year-old girl? My God. I’m already dialing CPS with shaking hands.

But I must mute my 32-year-old thinking from my 1998 thinking, when I, myself, was 12. My best friend Shannon, and I would ride our bikes with a tote bag full of BSC books clunking and bouncing on the back fender, to each other’s houses. Shannon’s house is one of the only houses I have never had to knock on the door to be let in. I always busted through the back door of the old farm house, grabbed a pop, and belly flopped onto her living room floor. I still do this. Just switch out the pop with beer.

Life has changed immensely since those days. Parents would never even consider letting their unattended 12- year-olds ride their bikes six miles to a friend’s house. Past an overgrown junkyard and a quarry. Yes, a quarry, like in Stranger Things. Now I won’t let Teddy leave unattended for three minutes in our backyard while I run into the house to pee. So, the entire premise of the Baby Sitter’s Club books has aged as well as Lil’ Kim. *I’m pausing while you google what Lil’ Kim looks like now . . . I mean, right??

To emphasis my point, let me share with you the plot of one of my favorite BSC books, Kristy and the Haunted Mansion. Kristy, BSC president and our favorite closeted lesbian, gets caught in a horrible storm with her youth softball team and her 17-year-old brother, Charlie. Their van breaks down, forcing them to take shelter overnight in a huge creepy mansion, run by an old caretaker. A bridge gets washed out, and they are stranded. Let’s break this down. Parents of the softball players, ages ranging four to ten, were completely ok with a 17 and 12-year-old taking their children home in a terrible storm, in a big ol’ stoner van with a faulty transmission. They can’t call home because its 1993, so parents are left with thinking the worst. Then these two pubescent idiots think that their only choice is put their lives in the hands of a 60-year-old hermit who lives in a shed? I’ve watched enough Dateline to know how this turns out.

I thought about doing a complete 2019 reboot of our favorite babysitters. Kristy would have met a girl, Ray, in college who would have shown her the ins and outs of her sexuality. They would have gotten married, adopted a couple dogs, and moved into a bungalow close to Kristy’s parents. Kristy teaches PE now and coaches the high school softball team. Ray sells soaps and organic cucumbers at the local farmer’s market.

I wanted to continue with other members of the BSC. Stacey, our favorite glamour girl and diabetic, would have moved back to New York City and gotten in with the Bravo crowd. She parties with Bethanny Frankel and takes the jitney to the Hamptons every weekend in the summer. She thinks Luanne Delesseps is trash. And so on and so forth. But after getting in deep about Dawn’s veganism and Green Party membership, I had to stop.

Why does everything need a 2019 reboot? I’m sick of reboots. Everything seems to have the life squeezed out of it anymore. Can’t we leave well enough alone? Just this weekend, I see that three more Disney movies are getting a reboot. I mean, the Lady and the Tramp?! Let’s just all watch an ASPCA commercial without changing the channel. Admit it. Not once have you heard Sarah McLaughlin’s entire spiel.

But, it all comes back to nostalgia and the lives we are leading now. What are we missing from the days of John Hughes movies and parachute pants? I think we all know. It’s innocence. It’s the innocent fun that came with watching The Goonies and Pretty in Pink. It’s the innocence of not being over exposed to stories of violence and cruelty. I’m completely aware that, just as now, terrible things happened back then. But there was distance. I could go into how we’re all being sucked into a dystopian worm hole through social media. But I won’t. On the opposite side of that spectrum, a natural act of kindness is now broadcast for all to see. I appreciate watching these bits of happiness, but why do they have to be filmed? Is it that without visual proof, we can’t believe it happened and that we so badly need to know we are still capable of kindness?

A millennium’s worth of moments of kindness have happened before us. There are no videos or photographic evidence of a woman sharing her bread ration with a child in a concentration camp. But, we know it happened.  I’m depressing you. And I didn’t even force you to watch an ASPCA commercial.

Instead of rereading some BSC books, and trying to recreate a lost part of my youth, I’ve decided to enjoy something that 2019 has to offer – start a new movement of original thought. I could read a new book, or watch an independent film, instead of re-watching Uncle Buck for the tenth time.

The past is in the past. Time moves on, no matter how much we lament years gone by. Here’s my challenge to you, friends. Create something new and original. Enjoy the creative work of someone you admire. Enjoy what today has to offer. As hard as it is to believe today, good things are happening. We have Lizzo as proof of this.