Millennial Struggles

I think no matter what generation you're in, we can all agree on one thing: life kicks us all in the proverbial balls.

Ever since the mid 2000's life has been just a bit extra weird every year.

From Brittney Spears shaving her head, Michael Sheen drinking tiger blood, being on the verge of World War three like twelve times, global pandemic, political turmoil that bordered on fascist dictatorship, literal nazis returning, and I don't even want to count the amount of times people have been claiming that the world was about to end.

To be perfectly honest, 2012 was just one long anxiety attack for me because every time there was an earthquake or a mysterious storm, my friends would freak out claiming it was the end.

I'm 28, I remember September 11th as if it happened yesterday and the whole month that followed, everyone was on edge about what would happen next or if there was going to be another attack.

Now, in 2022, it's been two years since the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic and I'm not even surprised at anything anymore.

And now, it seems that being a millennial is once again a crime.

I was in the grocery store and I was picking up some groceries. I was picking out a few apples when my cart got hit by another, I turned around and an old woman was glaring at me.

"Who do you think you are?" She snarled.

"...a person." I answered.

"Oh ha-ha." She rolled her eyes. "I clearly meant why are you wearing a mask?" She glared at me and pointed at my face.

"Clearly." I sighed. "I feel more comfortable wearing a mask."

"You know they actually make you sicker." She said.

"It's my decision and mine alone to wear one." I grabbed my cart to move away from the crazy but she rammed my cart again.

"You damn millennials think you know everything!" She said while keeping me pinned. "You want us to get shots and wear masks and turn us into Socialists. Don't you feel stupid wearing a mask? You're the only one in this store wearing one."

"You're the only one being crazy in this store and that doesn't stop you." I yanked my cart backwards and walked away.

I heard her talking after me but I just ignored her till an employee stopped her long enough for me to buy my groceries and leave.

Will this generational war betwixt Millennials, Baby Boomers, Gen Xer's, and Gen Z ever end?

I am not only emotionally and physically exhausted by existing in general at this point but now I can't even pick an apple without being harassed with the evil variant of Sofia Petrillo?

I used to work with a lot (A F*CKING LOT) of people who were Baby Boomers and over 10 years of working with them, I grew to really, really despise them and their generation. Not because of when they were born really, but because they kept calling me 'Snowflake' instead of my name and everytime they were mad about something they would blame me purely because of my generation.

Does it get easier? Ever?

Will this idiotic verbal cold war ever end between people of all ages?

I would really like to just live my life and if people hate me it will be because of something I did like cutting them off in rush hour or calling them a very bad British curse word; not because of the year I was born.

As if any of us have any control of that anyway. It's not like I appeared to my mother in the form of a ghost and told her to get pregnant with me at a very specific time so I could be born a millennial. That's not how that works.

I swear, the next person who calls me a Snowflake I will punch in their reproductive parts so hard that their voice with be so high only dogs could understand them.

How did we get here? How did we become so focused on blaming one generation or another that we ignored the rest of the world? Millennials didn't destroy the diamond industry, the 1% raised the price of them so much that we had to decide between keeping our crappy apartment or buying a ring because we can't make a liveable wage from one job alone.

Just let us buy our apples in peace, dammit.