There’s a strange, quiet reckoning that comes with getting older – one that doesn’t arrive all at once, but creeps in gradually. It is hidden in the comfort of familiar faces that once felt immortal.
If you, like me, were born anywhere around 1970, then the 80s weren’t just a decade – they were a proving ground. A time when music felt louder, movies felt bigger, and the people on our screens and in our stereos felt untouchable. They weren’t just entertainers, they were larger than life. Indestructible. Permanent.
And now, as time goes by, one by one they’re going, going, gone.
When a musician or actor from our youth passes away, the grief hits differently than it used to. It’s not just about them anymore. Not really. Of course, we feel it – we remember the scenes, the lines, the moments burned into our memory. Heck, a full half of my vocabulary is made up of 80s movie quotes and song lyrics. Underneath that however is something deeper, something harder to quantify. It’s the realization that time didn’t stop where we hoped it did. Back then, those people represented a kind of invincibility. They were fixed in place, a moment in time. Frozen at their peak. Forever in their leather or neon jackets, their iconic roles, their very prime. And if they were permanent, then in some way, so are we.
Unfortunately time doesn’t work like that.
Now, when we hear that another one has passed, it’s not just a loss – it’s a marker. A reminder. A quiet voice that says, that era is ending… and so is the illusion that we’re somehow immune to the progression of time.
So when we lose a childhood staple of our youth, we’re not just mourning that person; We’re mourning the version of ourselves that existed when they mattered the most to us. That kid blasting cassette tapes in their room. The teenager watching the same movie for the tenth time. The feeling that life was wide open and free, stretching endlessly ahead of us. The feeling that we still had forever to go.
What’s different about our generation (and generations to follow I’m sure) though, is this:
We have never in history had the kind of access to the past that’s available to us now.
At any moment, we can pull up a song, a movie, an interview, even a photo. We can see our heroes and idols exactly as they were – unchanged, unaged, still in their prime. It creates this strange dual reality where the past is both gone and completely alive at the same time.
They’re still there. But they’re not.
And neither are we.
That’s the part that lingers in the back of my mind.
Because while we can revisit those moments endlessly, we can’t fully step back into them. We can’t be the person we were when they first meant something to us. Time only moves one way, no matter how many times we hit replay.
And maybe that’s not entirely a bad thing.
Maybe the point isn’t to hold onto that illusion of immortality. Maybe it’s to recognize just how powerful those moments were – and still are. The fact that a song from 40 years ago can still hit you in the chest means something. It means it mattered. It still matters.
And so do we.
Because if the people who felt invincible aren’t physically invincible, of course, they can be “immortal”. Time doesn’t just take – it leaves things behind. Memories. Soundtracks. Stories. Pieces of who we were that we still carry. We’re not just watching the past disappear.
We carry it forward.
And maybe that’s how we make peace with it – Not by pretending we’re still young, but by realizing that those years didn’t vanish. They became part of us. Woven into who we are now.
So when the next headline comes, as it inevitably will, and another name from our youth fades into history, take a moment. Feel it. Remember.
And don’t just mourn the passing of a person or a period in time, recognize that you were there for it. Celebrate that those moments were in some way, large or small, a part of becoming who you are.
Time marches on, for all of us.
Now get to the choppa
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The Involved Husband 