The Millennial’s Lament

By River Clegg

June 5, 2024

The Millennial awakens. His alarm has not gone off. He wakes up this early now, naturally. He sighs. He hums the first few notes of “Rolling in the Deep,” a song that he believes came out four years ago. He sighs again.

He walks. I am no longer young, he thinks. Being young was my identity—my whole generation’s identity. Now what do we have? He ponders the phrase “O.K., boomer.” Soon, he knows, young people will make up a similar expression for millennials. Something like “Sure thing, millennial,” he muses, but said in a mean, sarcastic way. The thought unsettles him. Pants are becoming wider, and he doesn’t know how to cope with that.

Certain words have passed the Millennial by, and he wonders, wistfully, if he messed up by not saying things like “phat” or “dope” when he had the chance. He always thought they’d sound dumb coming out of his mouth. He was probably right. Still.

The Millennial once went to a concert in the basement of a Brooklyn dance club. He cannot remember the name of a single person he went with. Or what the band was. All he can cling to is the fact that, once, it happened. “It was past midnight,” he tells himself, “and I was not in my home.” He silently repeats this phrase as though it’s an incantation against death itself. The Millennial yawns.

The Millennial has seen much—horrors and wonders alike. He thinks about the vastness of time, and the unknowability of the future. He remembers an era when putting bacon on, say, cinnamon rolls and then selling them was considered new and bold. His right knee has been in pain for seven months.

He sits. He scrolls. He reads a headline about pornography addiction. He mulls, Is that a serious issue these days? It might be. When the Millennial was growing up, smut could be found only in old magazines or online, in images that took hours to download. There was so little of it, in other words, that addiction would have felt like an impossible luxury. Huh. Now the Millennial is thinking about pornography. This makes him think about the film “Boogie Nights,” which makes him think about how Paul Thomas Anderson made it when he was only twenty-seven years old. The Millennial is now unbelievably sad. He mentally recites the landline phone numbers he remembers from childhood.

He rises. His leg has gone numb from the sitting. It’s his right leg, and he figures that this is probably related to the knee pain he’s been dealing with. He owns a big, stretchy physical-therapy band that a doctor once told him would help. He has used it twice.

The Millennial is a father now. His daughter is three. He has another on the way. The Millennial is tired virtually all the time. Coffee does nothing. He assumes it’s because he didn’t sleep enough in college. Great. Now the Millennial is thinking about college. He felt so young then. So free. He thinks about the people he’s lost touch with. Would they even remember him now? The Millennial is about to cry. No, wait. The Millennial is experiencing acid reflux. The Millennial burps.

He thinks more about fatherhood and, more generally, about the future his children will inherit. This is unimaginably scary, so he stops. He walks to the refrigerator. He pulls out the leftover roast chicken from when he cooked a few days ago. It’s the one impressive recipe he knows. If he were to throw a dinner party, this is absolutely what he would make. But he does not throw dinner parties. Nor does he attend many. He vaguely assumed that, as he grew older, and participated in fewer all-night benders, he would begin to take part in more sophisticated, grownup gatherings. With a few exceptions, this has not happened. Is it because he’s too busy with parenthood? Or simply because he is no longer a fun or interesting person to spend time with socially? “Was I ever?” he says to himself. Oh, God. He goes back to thinking about his children’s future.

The sun sets. Whatever comes with its next rising, the Millennial will face it with the blank, unflinching gaze of a man who is beyond feeling. A man whose generation no longer fits into the story society tells itself. A man whose laptop has a folder titled “million-dollar app ideas $$” that he has not opened since 2014.

He sighs. He remembers again how pants are getting wider. At least they’re comfy, he thinks. Can he adapt to these newer times after all?

He breathes. He smiles. Suddenly, he’s filled with an unfamiliar confidence. “Sure thing, millennial!” he says to himself, still grinning. Then his phone buzzes. It’s an e-mail from his primary-care physician. The Millennial really needs to stay away from salt.