GenX is Not Okay Right Now

I hate those Chat-GPT-inspired posts that clog my feed with “I wasn’t gonna post this” or “I didn’t plan to write this.”

I genuinely didn’t plan to write anything new this week.

I hate to complain, but my week has already been a shitshow: exhausting, disheartening, and straight-up FUBAR to the nth degree.
And every time I think maybe I can escape into some low-effort doomscrolling, even that screws me over.

Especially this week. Including about an hour ago.

And just like that, now I have something to say.

First came the news four days ago: Malcolm-Jamal Warner died in Costa Rica while vacationing with his family. The details that keep trickling in are just brutal, especially the part about his daughter being rescued by nearby surfers.

Which means that child likely watched her father drown.

I don’t know the full story, but I believe with my whole heart that he spent his last moments making sure she lived. And she did.

I can’t imagine the pain of flying back home from a family trip with an empty seat next to you that shouldn’t be.

When I saw the footage from Ozzy Osbourne’s farewell show, I knew then it was the end of something.  The finality of it all was undeniable.

But I didn’t think it would be days later, and not this jarringly close to MJW.

And just this morning, the proverbial “death always comes in threes’ moment happened (if you’re not counting Connie Francis, RIP):
Hulk Hogan. Cardiac arrest.

Three GenX icons gone in five days.  

Holy. Shit.

Gen X isn’t okay. And neither are you, probably.
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As a child of the 80’s, of course I watched the Cosby show. We all did. And while the legacy of that show aged like milk, Malcolm-Jamal Warner as Theo Huxtable meant something to us all the same.

He was funny but also flawed in a way that made him relatable. Over time, MJW built a solid career as an actor, poet, and Grammy-winning musician.

He embodied so much of the Gen X spirit: understated, multi-talented, and constantly evolving, no matter what.

Ozzy.

My budding metalhead years had his music in my repertoire. And now, every road trip with my daughter, no matter how short, has one of us picking the perfect song to blast out the windows.

Ozzy remains in healthy rotation. His music connected generations, and that’s no small thing.

And now Hulk Hogan.

WWE was the constant background noise in my childhood home due to my father’s seemingly religious devotion to it.

But Hulk Hogan was the one I watched because of that wild, puffed-up persona, that showmanship he had. That crazy, over-the-top energy that somehow made everything feel critical.

To this day, my daughter and I will square off over nothing and growl, “LEMME TELL YOU SOMETHIN’, BROTHER!”

I write about pop culture because, yes, it entertains and distracts us, but also because these people are among so many who literally shaped the soundtracks and cinematic memories of our most formative years.

And now, one by one,  they’re disappearing.

We mourn the persona, but we also mourn who we were at the height of their relevance. That version of ourselves that sat cross-legged on the shag carpet, cereal bowl or popcorn in hand, in front of our screens, believing our icons would always be there.

It’s complicated, of course. Hulk Hogan was a persona, and I was a big fan of that. By most accounts, the man himself wasn’t someone I’d willingly celebrate.

Ozzy had his demons too, none of them exactly a secret. MJW, as far as I know, had a solid moral compass, but even if he hadn’t, this isn't about canonizing anyone.

It’s about the imprint they left on us through mixtapes and reruns and whatever else passed for comfort in those chaotic early days of ours.

They don’t call us the Forgotten Generation for nothing, after all.
We were taught to self-sooth (and self-parent if you were a latchkey kid) and stay out of the way while having a front-row seat to every cultural collapse from AIDS to Enron.

And now, we’re holding our own families together, burying parents, fighting our burnout, and trying not to examine our own mortality too closely.

Instead, we keep going.
That’s just what we do.
That’s what this week feels like.
And that’s enough said.

Except also, somebody please put 24/7 wellness checks on Dick Van Dyke and Dolly. I can’t take another hit right now.

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Buy me a coffee, a moment of peace, or just help me keep screaming into the void. Either way, it’s greatly appreciated.

Heather P. is an essayist and longtime ghostwriter publishing unapologetic stories about trauma, reinvention, and the absurdity of real life.

Creator of Unfinished Business, a platform reaching readers in over 20 countries for its dark humor, emotional precision, and refusal of performative healing, whether the story is about grief, growth, or just getting through Tuesday.