I’ve been taking a trip down memory lane pop culture wise: I’ve travelled all the way back to the 90s. And it’s been emotional.
I was born on 1st February 1990, which gave me the full span of this glorious decade to enjoy. In my opinion, the 90s was the absolute best era to grow up in; we had revolutionary music, an array of different crazes, and were spoilt for choice when it came to brilliant kids TV shows. Staples of my childhood include:
Barbie dolls - Keep your Bratz. Shove your Cabbage Patch. There was only one girl for me and that was Barbie. I adored Barbie, and Shelley, and all her little pals. I had the Barbie dream house, the school, the veterinary practise, the horse box, the camper van… oh my, one whiff of pink plastic and I was THERE. If allowed, I would play with Barbie all day every day, never ever tiring. Barbie and friends were all assigned different names, personalities, styles; I had even been known to pretend my Barbie’s had nits, just for my own amusement.
SM:TV Live - Undoubtedly the best children’s show of all time. I would not MOVE on a Saturday until I had watched the entirety of the show. It was lively, clever, quirky, and cheek-achingly funny. The chemistry between Ant, Dec and Cat was warm, giggly and genuine, and their sense of fun was catching. Wonkey Donkey was always hilarious, Challenge Ant was edge-of-your-seat stuff, and Chums was nothing short of genius; “Me and Cat, all alone in the flat… a think am gunna kiss ‘er!” I was always rooting for Dec and Cat - even as a pre-teen I was a sucker for a love story.
Sabrina the Teenage Witch - My second favourite TV show. I wanted to be Sabrina, was in love with Harvey, loathed Libby, and wanted a cat like Salem. I was also convinced from the ages of 6 - 10 that The Other Realm was a real place, and I just needed to make room in our airing cupboard to be transported there.
Spice Girls - The Spice Girls came onto the scene and knocked playgrounds full of schoolgirls straight off their feet. Me and my fellow 6 year old girlfriends were completely and utterly in awe; their feminist ‘girl power’ message bubbled between us when pushing the boys off the swings, lyrics to ‘Wannabe’ played on our lips while braiding hair, and entire lunchtimes would be devoted to forming a dance to ‘Spice Up Your Life’, or bickering over which of us was Baby Spice. (EVERYONE wanted to be Baby Spice. No one wanted to be Sporty. Too butch.)
There are LOADS more things I loved in the Nineties, but to describe them all in detail would take me a very long time. I’ll just list a few others here:
Tamagotchi (need I say more?)
Pogs (you got them in packets of Wotsits, Quavers and Monster Munch. So naturally I had millions.)
Space hoppers (amazeballs)
Fresh Prince of Bell Air (every nineties kid knows that theme tune off by heart. Every. Single. One.)
Kenan and Kel (who loves orange soda?)
Steps (Lisa Scott-Lee went to the same high school as me. We got a surprise visit and show in year 7. Trufacts.)
Smiley face BN biscuits (BNBN, do dooo, do do do)
Strawberry Onken yogurts that were round with a toy in the middle.
Re-living all this nineties stuff has brought me close to tears at some points. Happy tears, that is. It’s brought back so many memories of my childhood and, looking back, what a wonderful childhood it was. I was endlessly happy, always carefree, never wanting for anything; perfectly content with my whole life. Just how a child should be. Why can’t life stay like that forever?
I guess it gets a bit harder to make yourself happy as you grow up. The older you get, the more you require to make you feel fulfilled and satisfied with your life. The new ‘Lion King’ video and a tube of Smarties doesn’t cut it any more. We become competitive in our ambitions; are often blind sighted by material wants; start tirelessly searching for the perfect partner; and are always striving for that little bit more than we already have. I’m not saying these features of growing up are altogether bad things -wanting to improve our lives is natural - they just all make things a little more difficult. Things get a bit complicated. If we’re not careful, stress can frequent our senses more than giddiness.
So I think it’s important that if you find something that makes you feel like a kid again (preferably, yano… legal), just let yourself go a bit and act silly from time to time. Sometimes me and my bff Lindsey look around at other people our age with a mortgage and bills and a pair of sophisticated heels for the office and, in the case of some girls who were in our year, a baby and a husband, and we wonder why we’re not that mature and sensible, as though it were a bad thing. It’s hard to separate in our minds us as 14 year old girls sneaking crisps and passing notes in class, and us now as fully grown human adult women - I’m not sure where this transaction took place, or if we were ever consulted. And although it’s great to be of an age were you have all the freedom you want, and while more responsibility is actually a good thing, if being mature and sensible means we can no longer giggle like idiots when lifeguards say hello to us, or get extremely over-excited about going to Alton Towers, or have sleepovers where we watch scary films that prevent us from sleeping and have marshmallow fights, or run around town in Santa hats at Christmas… well, frankly, you can keep it.
