The 80's

I am a child of the 80's. Those were the days. Prince had me wearing a raspberry beret, Katrina had me walking on sunshine, and Bon Jovi wanted me dead or alive. I even subscribed to every teen girl's fantasy of having John Cusak in a long trench coat with a large boom box standing outside my window blasting Peter Gabriel. In my old age now, I do get to see John Cusak now when my brother, who has extremely good Cubs season tickets texts me his picture in a complete attempt to tease his little sister. It works. Then there was the hair. The huge hair. The bigger the better at that point. I am sure my alpha gamma delta sisters would probably verify there is likely a huge hole in the ozone over 200 South Summit in Iowa City even to this day from our love of aquanet.

Yes. Those were the days. One thing the eighties had that was not so nostalgic was bullies. A friend following along with this blog reminded me yesterday of the comments that were made to those of us unlucky enough to be overweight children. Yes. In the 80's bullies were bullies. There was name calling, spit ball throwing, house egging and notes left in lockers. I had all of that and more.

There were the straightforward bullies who could come up with nothing more creative than "fat". Then there were the more creative bullies. One that stands out is a kid who kept calling me "Jonah" thinking he was so clever all the while realizing Jonah was the man inside the belly of the whale. Not the actual whale. My shyness and poor self image at that point prevented me from pointing that out.

In those days, bullying was part of being on the school yard. A well placed punch when it involved boys was tolerated in retaliation. Now these things would involve police, lawyers and sensitivity training. It has been encouraging to me to see this sort of change. The movement afoot to accept physical differences no matter the cause. However, for this of us products of the 80's we still carry this stuff around. This makes the negative voices in our heads a wee bit louder and complements tough to internalize.

For me, fighting off the negativity is a constant struggle even now. I have found the best way for me to turn down the voices is through exercise. Thinking I could not achieve any measure of success goes down when today I rowed faster than yesterday or lifted heavier, or even something as simple as two weeks ago when I did a 90 minute Orange Theory and simply did not die. Oh the negative voices will always be there but keeping in perspective they no longer own me as they did in my childhood is a great feeling.

As a side note....yes I still rock out to the 80's. Nothing like a little Culture Club to get revved up for an ER shift. However I think all would agree....leaving the neon wardrobe and big hair that could not even be tamed with a banana clip behind was truly something to be thankful for.