Week 2 Theme...

My roommate pulls up next to me with N'Sync's greatest hits blaring from his radio. I laugh and sing along amazed that I have some how managed to pull every lyric from my memory. That's right I grew up like many girls addicted to boy bands. I am not considered to be very old. In fact my coworkers often call me their baby. Describing to you how history had affected my life would just leave me staring at you blankly.
To be perfectly frank I never really gave much thought to what was going on around me until now. In 1996 I was 9 and eagerly awaiting the arrival of my little brother. That was the year that Clinton was re-elected and when the Royal Family suffered through a nasty divorce. A budding beauty queen was murdered and sexually assaulted in her home on Christmas Eve. Yes, I mean Jon Benet. For as young as I was these never touched me. I never grasped the gravity of the situation or the implications it would mean on the world. All I was aware of was that walking though the grocery store with my mom all you could see was magazines, books, etc all dissecting and trying to solve the crime of the decade. I never lost sleep or agonized over a little girl I only saw flashes of when my mom was watching the news. I was more concerned with getting home from school and riding my bike to the neighbors to watch him exercise his prize pig. That's Arkansas for you. Entertainment derives from farm animals and imagination.
I spent much of the nineties outside with my sisters embroiled in our own worlds of fantasy and childhood merriment. The world never touched us. I remember the bombing of Kosovo and for the first time felt actually fear that the world's problems could have an adverse affect on me. I remember it being plastered on all the news channels and it interrupting my T.V. shows. I was horrified and insulted that we would be so careless with innocent life. There were innocent civilians in this town we were bombing. I was young, that's the only impression I took out of it.
I turned 12 at the end of 98. This changed everything! My life revolved around Backstreet Boys, N'Sync and 98 Degrees. Brittney Spears and Christina Aguiliera were my role models! I spent countless hours with my friends just blaring our pop tunes and dancing around our rooms. Mostly we'd hook up our boom boxes outside and jump around on the trampoline till the darkness drove us inside. We weren't scared of the dark but that is usually about the time that coyotes were to emerge from their hiding spots. Don't worry they always gave plenty of warning of their arrival. We'd tip a cow or two and call it a night. Sighs. Time flies when your having fun.