I’m a GenXer. We’re one of the smallest generations, yet wow, are we packed with generational gifts and purpose.

Lately I’ve been countered quite a number of people who have said things like “I don’t have any friends,” “I’m okay with not having friends.” or “I really don’t like people, but I like you.”

It’s a surprising number of people who say this.

I don’t think this is actually true, about the friends part. I think folks have all kinds of friends, but what I think folks are saying is that they maybe don’t have friends that they do something with, regularly, outside of their spouse.

A lot of these folks I’m hearing this from are in their late 40s through early 60s, so that’s sort of an age group where we settle in and get into our life routines.

I also see a lot of bitter tinges in this demographic. A lot disappointment. A lot of feelings of “lost purpose”.

I’m 55, so obviously I hang around this demographic quite a bit, lol! And there is a lot of complicated feeling that circulate in what we like to call “middle age” (which really, would mean we’re living to be 110, something those of us in our 50’s have crossed the “middle age barrier, lol).

There are particularly the fears that Gen X has brought with us into this time in life—fears of being forgotten, fears of being abandoned, fears of having no money, fears of an economy dropping right out and having no jobs (that’s what happened when we got out of college), fear of people not loving us for exactly who we are, because we were born into the very end of a changing old world as the Boomers were trying to bring in an uplifted and involved society—all of these things which we have packed forward from a childhood which, for many of us, was de-stabilized, for one reason or another.

Now, I truly believe that it was Gen X’s soul lesson is to work through these things, so we could be very strong people when it came time to be the bridge from the old world to the New World.

(BTW, Gen X—that’s actually our job. We created the freakin’ Internet, you guys. So suck it up. It’s our time to straddle one world, and throw the other leg up on the dock, to walk into another world. We’re really good at this shit, you guys. It’s what we’re made for.)

So why are so many Gen Xers wanting to retreat, and not talk to anybody, and not want to be anybody’s friend—and you guys, I know that’s our Ethos, “the loner”—but let’s be real, we secretly love our social groups. We all were the cast of ‘Friends’ at one time, and we ALL miss those days.

How many Gen Xers are actually kind of weirdly miserable, and they can’t put their finger on why?

Why do so many Gen Xers have such a restless itch inside of them, and we’re not able to satiate this?

I think it’s because many of us have forgotten what we are.

We are the generation that is here to support the framework of the New World. We are gritty AF. We are NOT fragile. We are our own mobile “safe space” because we had to be. We don’t have much boo-hoo to give, toward those who have squandered their privilege becoming obsessed with their own needs, them, them, them. And we rise to the occasion, per situation.

This is what I think about this endless “itch we can’t scratch”, Gen X.

It’s a calling.

And it’s time we answer.

It’s this biological “prompt” that our time is here. It’s NOW.

Our biology is going off like an alarm clock, GenX, screaming at us—

“Hey! You, the f*cker that wishes you were Beth Dutton— get off your Netflix-shaped ASS because you’re not gonna be here forever! Get your shit together and get out there and kick some ass! That’s what you were here for, remember? No, it *wasn’t* Nirvana and Soundgarden and the cocktails and the dance clubs and the roller coasters at Knotts Berry Farm. It’s THIS, Beavis. So ditch your Jammies, put some pants on, and go get it done. For Christ’s sake, already. You were NEVER gonna have it easy, Xer. That’s why you picked this gig. Because at the core of your being—you’re a shit-starter of the very best kind. Now suck it up, roll up your sleeves, get dirt under your fingernails, and go clean up aisle nine.”

And while our biology is ringing like this, worse than your tinnitus after a Metallica concert, the world is saying, “Be an influencer! Go virtual! Apply a filter! Cancel haters!”

Unreal, fake, filter—illusion.

GenX was the “get real” generation, so this is an offense to all of our senses.

GenX, no wonder we’re feeling itchy. We’re a cultural bomb trying to go off, in a virtual room with virtual people.

Like right now.

How does that happen?! By me typing “BOOOOOOOM!!!!!”…?

Yeah. I’m not the generation that finds that satisfying.

Xers, we want to see REAL WORLD change. We like the real world. We’re not afraid of it. We grew UP in the real world. We’re about moving the cultural markers so the real world keeps step. 3D is sexy to GenX.

Give us a pile of crap, and we’ll build you towers of garden space. Give us your consumer scraps and we’ll build you a love empire.

Like a plow to a field, GenX is to culture. Turn it over. Break it up. Let it breathe. Break it down. Fill it with oxygen. Rip it into rows where anything can be planted. Change the terrain to maximize growth.

Then it’s time to plant.

I really think that so many of us are absolutely mentally-spun-out because there’s this illusion that the ground is being plowed effectively—with an app.

(Yep. I know.)

GenX— we are power packed nuclear reactors of white-hot possibility.

It’s how we were trained as young people.

It’s how we trained ourselves.

And I think a lot of us are only using about 1/10th of what we got, under our hood, to bring change to this world, at this whacked-out point in time,  because most of us don’t wanna have an Instagram page and wear app-ears and whiskers, so we can keep people’s attention.

I’m 55. I have whiskers in real life. So there ya go. Listen up.

GenX, we’re being called back into action. That’s the itch you can’t seem to find, to scratch. (No. The scratch is not the hook-up you had back at the club a million years ago.)

Hey, listen, fellow Xers—for those who have taken a break— I don’t really blame us for sitting back a bit. We were the generation that fought incredibly hard for HIV/aids to be viewed as a real issue. We were the generation that threw our shoulders, hard, into the pad, for LGBTQI+ rights, standing on the shoulders of giants who suffered before us. We were the generation that started to really bang the gong about climate change, after our Boomer parents were screaming at us about not using Aquanet, to heal the hole in the ozone layer.

We canvased, we worked on right-to-die campaigns, we worked on media outlets, we brought messages forward, we worked in healthcare, we are constantly stomping for a better world. That’s just who we are! (We were raised by the Boomers, and they were constantly stomping for a better world. So it makes sense.)

So it’s understandable that a lot of us would be tired by the time we hit our late 40s and 50.

And let’s be honest, we don’t quite have the energy we used to. And all that stuff we used to do took a shit ton of energy. So obviously, we’re not supposed to go about the things the same way, Gen X.

But we’re not dead yet. 

It’s time to get activated as a generation again, Xers. We just keep waiting for society to correct itself—and it ain’t workin’.

We vote, we volunteer, and it just seems to be not happening as quickly as possible. I truly believe one of the reasons is because a big bulk of Gen X has been taking break. Not everybody, but many of us. We made the Internet, we made electric cars, we made flip phones, we tried to make as much of the Jetsons and Star Trek come true as we could—then the world kept being stupid—especially using all the stuff we made. (Well. That wasn’t part of the plan. It was supposed to make the world better. What the hell.)

So we moved ourselves into the “F*ck it” mode, and I think a lot of us have gotten sucked into the slow-drip of “middle America” in our quest to get better jobs, buy and support our homes, raise our kids, and then have an endless group of vultures circling our heads shouting “RETIREMENT!! RETIREMENT!! YOU’RE GONNA DIE IN RETIREMENT IF YOU DON’T _______.”

(^^^^This is an enormous ass-pain. I get that America runs on FOMO, but my God, the amount of people that make money off of the fear of intense suffering is absurd.)

I’m not saying GenX has dropped out! I know a ton of Gen Xers who have gone on to have careers in activism, careers in healthcare advocacy, teaching, public service —I mean the list is huge.

I’m saying that I believe that GenX was BORN for THIS timeframe.

Though the world needs all of us— GenX is what the gritty part of the world needs.

We’re tough but fair, we’re compassionate yet take no crap—and we don’t back down when the mountain we’re climbing is a righteous one.

PLUS—

Now we have wisdom. And a LOT of education, some of it formal, and a lot of it through 35 years of hands-on experience of what works, and what really, really doesn’t.

And, best of all, we won’t get sidetracked by partying too hard and vomiting our heads off in an alley, like we did in the 90s. We can actually stay on task and hold our endless martinis now.

In fact, Gen X, we’re just a little bit terrifying in our steeled vision, as TikTokers have recently expressed—which amounts to a lack of fear in our generation.

It’s true. We’re a little actually scary, if pushed.

Nobody wants to die, but we don’t fear death. We had that dangled over our head in high school with the Cold War and Russia, and a grizzly skin-popping, eyeball-baked nuclear demise, as portrayed on nightmarish nighttime miniseries after miniseries. (Literally. They gave me nightmares.)

Nobody likes to be called names, yet we were the generation that came out as openly gay, openly trans, openly Psychic, openly not going to college, openly whatever weird-ass thing— so sticks and muthaf*ckin’ stones, bitches. Bring it.

Nobody wants to be bullied, yet we were the generation who had to deal with bullies on our own, like the Boomers before us. Dealing with mean girls at school? You better get your verbal ninja skills sharpened. Some jock asshole saying he’s gonna beat you up at the park after school? You better pull your best Chuck Norris shit right out if your buttcrack because there’s no getting out of that.

If you run, you’re prey. If you show them they can best you, they’ll keep besting you. So plant your feet, use The Force, Luke— and lean in. Because when you get home, both of your parents are going to be at work anyway, so forget a hug and some uplifting advice. That’s what your friends are for.

That’s being GenX.

Nobody wants to be alone, but we’ve lost friends to HIV/AIDS when nobody talked about it, we’ve lost colleagues and family and friends as we enter into our 40s and 50s, we’ve gone through divorces and found the love of our lives, we understand that even if we did end up alone (nobody’s first choice), we would live. It would be us and the goddamn cockroaches—but GenX? We would live.

And we would plow a new field. For us and the roaches. Because that’s what GenX does.

So listen, Xers—you do have friends. Lots of them! You just need to reach out once in a while, and quit stewing in the tea of our generation’s lack of feeling like we have support. That’s just not true.

You DO have purpose. Tons of it! And the world needs exactly what we have to give right now. A little hug, a little attitude, a lot of fearlessness (we’ve learned to be afraid, one drip at a time—but that’s not us!) , and a ton of our best attribute—hope. Vision. Not giving one flat shit about what people think. And above all—

Knowing how to work together with one another, in the real world, to plow up this horse crap foundation, and plant something new.

Now. GenX. You go get yourself up, you get yourself a beer or a shot of tequila, or coffee or a protein drink or Kava or White Claw or whatever the hell your middle-age has driven you to do these days to make yourself feel better, and you dig deep and be honest with yourself about what boiling-pot it is, that you really want to be stirring.

Because life is begging you to do it.

Your psyche is begging you to do it.

Your DNA is begging you to do it.

You’re telling yourself you’re going crazy because of menopause, or because of midlife crisis, or any other psychological thing, when the fact of the matter is your entire being is vibrating to get out there and shake this dysfunctional shit up—and like George Michael said back in the day, choose LIFE!! (That doesn’t mean “don’t have an abortion”. That means “pull yer head out of your ass and initiate your gifts in the world”.)

It’s that simple.

GenX. Remember what generation you are. Pull out that fearlessness to evolve and change, because your vision is clear as a bell—and go stir up that ground. Plow up that fertile soil. Start that good trouble, that non-violent trouble that only we are capable of, silently changing a culture from the back room, when no one is looking.

We are goddamn gurus with that shit.

It’s what our generation is here for. Scratch that itch, beotch!

I mean after all, Gen X—what are they gonna do?

Take our retirement away??