The future once seemed so bright. What happened?

Nostalgia for the hope we lost along the way, and the dreams that never were. The 1990s will not return. We are the lost generation.

Remember that feeling when you brought gum to school?

Man, you were the shit! They all gathered around you, begging for that sweet, sweet deliciousness as if you were handing out money. For a few moments, minutes even, you were on top of the social hierarchy, popular, loved, and in demand. A fleeting feeling of ‘everything is alright in the world, and it can only get better.’ You did not even care about that packet of cheap gum; you cared about them. You were part of a community and thought you’d always be. School was hard, yes, but you had purpose, people around you, a place, and dreams. A vision of an unknowable and, at times, scary future, but always was it bright.

Then things got progressively worse. Life happened. What they call ‘growing up,’ which, in truth, is just an euphemism for alienation and depression.

People around you disappeared. Staying in contact is hard when everyone does his own thing. There were no crushes anymore, and that delicious feeling of butterflies in your stomach — replaced by the superficial hell that is online dating.

I did not make many friends at university. There were hundreds of people filling the courses, and each semester was an onslaught of new strangers. I lost myself in the masses, trying to stay in contact with friends from school. Yet seeing each other once a week, then once every two weeks, then once a month, and then a couple of times a year is very different from seeing each other every day.

School was the hardest of times, for many reasons, least of all that constant insecurity (I speak for myself here), and it was the greatest, easiest, fullest of times. The possibilities were endless, the world just waiting to be shaped by your hands.

It was all supposed to be… better. My future should have been an affluent, easy one. Yet now I can only boast of recurring mental health problems (sometimes, it’s better), a myriad of jobs I’ve quit, so many opportunities wasted, to arrive at where I am today. Nowhere, in a way.

I’m sure I’m not the only one. I was once the ‘gifted’ kid, the first one in the family to go to university and get a degree.

Oh man, the 1990s. What a glorious time.

I remember switching on my Sega (Sonic 2 is the best game ever made), my Playstation One. Later, building my own PC, playing the games of the early 2000s. So many things I loved doing. So many passions and interests. Immersing yourself in those worlds not to escape the dire real world, but just… for fun, man. Reading Harry Potter until the early morning hours despite it being a school day because you just could. Playing the first Pokémon game and doing that weird Safari Zone glitch to catch MissingNo.

I was never social, mind you, I always had few friends. But those that I had I saw almost every day. Now I have a couple of good friends I almost never see. When I do, it’s glorious, it’s fun, it’s as if we were kids again. But there’s a painful nostalgia to it all, for on the next day they’re gone and you’re left with a sort of emptiness. You think of a world in which you can spend more time with the people you love, and realize it does not exist.

You long for a community, and there are those lucky enough to actually find one in their workplace. I did, too, at my first job after I finished my master’s in business administration. I still consider them very good friends. (I see them twice a year.) But, man, the job was horrible. HR. Soul-crushing.

Sometimes the longing to return to easier times is almost overwhelming. A relatively carefree existence with a clear direction and without the crushing weight of struggling to pay bills and stay atop your fucked up, dopamine-starved brain.

I wish I could plug in my Sega and play Sonic until I forget all those worries, expectations, pressures, and so, so many disappointments.

But those times will never return. They are done. We’re grown-ups now. My younger sister married a couple of days ago; I’m pretty sure I’ll be an uncle soon enough.

It’s almost 2024. What have you achieved? What have I? Are they empty achievements or something that truly makes you happy? Will they matter? What if you have nothing? Do you feel betrayed or was it your own fault?

Man, to just go back to Windows 2000 or the glorious operating system that was Windows XP. That nostalgia of working out how a computer works for the very first time. Messing up the family PC and then spending frantic late hours trying to get rid of that virus before anyone notices. The early internet. YouTube before all the ads and the cringe. WinRAR always trying to get paid but freedom only a click away.

It all looked so promising, and I’m sure for some the promises held true. I do envy you, you know. Those that conquered this world and became part of it, instead of constantly feeling like an outside observer. I hate the capitalist system that forces us to live like this — one way only, and don’t you dare step outside the bounds — and still, I wish so very much I could just embrace it, be at peace with my surrounding world and myself. But I can’t. I’ve tried for so long. It’s not meant to be.

So here’s to us! Those that do not quite fit in. Those that will always struggle, destined to thread the line and try not to fall off. We will always have the good memories. The utter, shaking excitement of getting a new video game for Christmas. The warm, fuzzy feeling of having a crush. The time when TV shows and movies were actually fun.

It’s all so boring now. Boring dystopia.

Man, to become that blue hedgehog again. To switch on your console on a Friday evening after school, after having spent the day with your friends. For all the trauma I endured in my childhood, still, those were the days.

I hope children still feel like that. I hope they hold onto it. I hope they can accept and fit in when they’re older.

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Just trying to survive here.