The Early 90s Still Live in Me

The Early 90s Still Live in Me

I was born in the mid-70s, so the early 90s were my years. I had that innocence about me — the kind you don’t know is rare until it’s gone. I graduated from Mt. Diablo High School in 1994, tassel on the left, cap throwing and all. The world felt big but safe back then. We didn’t know everything. We weren’t supposed to.

I was still running the Global Teen Club with the help of my mom. She drove me to meetings, helped me stuff envelopes, believed in me when I said “teens need pen pals in other countries.” We didn’t have Zoom. We had stamps. We had patience. We had a table at the community center with a tri-fold board and a sign-up sheet. That was enough.

It was around then I fell in love with a guy who was older. Nothing really happened. It was a sweet crush, the kind that makes you rewind a cassette tape until it wears thin. I listened to All-4-One ballads on my Sony Walkman, lying on my bedroom floor, thinking he could hear the music if he just walked past my window. I Swear played while I did homework. So Much In Love played while I wondered what his hands would feel like. But he never touched me. I never let it get that far.

I was a late bloomer. I didn’t have sex until my 20s. And the funny thing is, I’m 51 now and I don’t think I’ve ever had sex the way people talk about — the way a “real man” and a “real woman” supposedly do. I’ve always fled from relationships before intercourse. Something in me panics. Something in me remembers that innocence from the 90s and doesn’t want to trade it for someone who hasn’t earned it.

So I’m celibate. At 51. I’ve never experienced sex the “right way,” whatever that means. You can be 51 and still inexperienced. You can be 51 and never have let anyone see the real you — not all the way. Not without your jeans and sweatshirt and your guard up.

For years I thought that meant something was wrong with me. That I missed a deadline. But now I think maybe I was protecting something. Maybe that 90s girl with the Walkman and the Global Teen Club knew what she was doing. She knew not to hand herself over just because the world said she should. She knew how to wait.

I’m thankful I never settled with guys who never got to know me. Thankful I never let loneliness trick me into calling it love. Thankful that the same girl who wrote letters to pen pals and believed in slow crushes is still in here, keeping me honest.

The early 90s taught me how to be alone without being empty. How to have feelings without acting on every one of them. How to believe that waiting isn’t wasting.

I don’t know if I’ll ever have sex “the right way.” But I do know this: I’ve kept myself. And at 51, with a PhD program and a room of my own and my mom’s voice still in my head saying “you’re doing good, Cathryn,” that feels like enough.

Maybe the real me isn’t something you give away. Maybe she’s something you grow into. And maybe the 90s weren’t just a decade. Maybe they were a promise I’m still keeping to myself.