(via: http://gobacktobed.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/tape.jpg)
So, I’ve been thinking.
Volunteering in a high school means that I am around teenagers. A lot. I see them head bopping on the front steps with their boom boxes like it’s 1989 (no, really. I kid you not), loitering against lockers in herds so big you can barely walk past them, and I see them.
You know, those dreamy-eyed, hand-holding, puppy-lovish teenage couples that stroll down the hallway– completely oblivious of the world around them. The ones who trace each others fingers on table tops, who dress to match each other and pass each other notes between periods because, like seriously, seventy minutes is like, way to long to be apart.
Totally.
Sound familiar? (yeeeeah… that was totally me, too. *sigh*)
Every time I see a young couple giggling down the hallway it takes me back to my own high school days and my own great high school romance. We were the unlikely couple–he was a big shot on the basketball team, I was the drama girl. He was the popular funny guy that everyone loved, I was the new girl. He was tall, I was not. Get the picture? haha
I met him shortly before I transferred to the school, and hooooo boy. I liked him immediately but, in typical high school fashion, it took us nearly 5 months to begin dating. We communicated the way all teenagers did–through our best friends, through letters and through romantic music mixes.
I first learned the magic of the mix tape through my older sister who had several boyfriends as I grew up. These boys liked to make her tapes to express their feelings because really, who actually talks about that stuff?
Seriously.
Long before the days of iTunes or downloading music making the perfect mix tape was an art. You had to watch the timing, rewind and fast forward manually, and, if you needed a song you didn’t have you waited patiently by the radio during the request shows for your song to come on so you could catch it! Pressing that record button at the right time was always so tricky, but the end result was always so worth it.
Why should I say “I Love You” when Celine Dion says it so much better?
By the time I was old enough to realize that my little brothers were the only boys that had cooties and start dating we had progressed to the Mixed CD. It was a much simpler process than it’s taped predecessor, and the half hour it took to burn a CD seemed like nothing compared to the hours one spent perfecting the tape and writing the songs on the back of the cassette case.
It was the perfect way to talk to your boy toy… N’SYNC and the Backstreet Boys always knew how to say what I was feeling. Have a crush? Make a mixed CD. Get in a fight? Make a mixed CD. Ready to tell that special someone how you feel? Billy Joel and Elvis Presley would be happy to tell them for you!
*sigh* Now that was love. Pouring your heart into the *perfect* CD that would say exactly what you “couldn’t”.
Anyway.
As I was watching these giggly couples make their way down the hall and reflected on my own high school experience I got to thinking: how on earth do these kids communicate now? I’m not even sure that this generation knows what a cassette tape is, and CDs are quickly and quietly disappearing. Are Romantic Mixes a thing of the past? Are these young couples actually talking to each other and using their own *gasp* words?!?! Actually communicating their feelings instead of letting someone else sing it for them?!
What is the world coming to?
What’s next–the Romance Mix Playlist? Pish posh. I think I’ll stick with tapes.
And yes, the Hubster was the recipient of several love cds when we started dating. Ha.
