Yes, I too was saddened by the news about Ted Kennedy’s malignant brain tumor. Anyone who reads this column knows that I’m a sucker for liberals. Still, despite the barrage of news footage, I couldn’t help but wonder what the big deal is. Senator Kennedy has done his family proud with his tireless efforts on behalf of the poor and the disenfranchised, and his reputation for being a true bipartisan on Capitol Hill has earned him the respect of even his most conservative Republican colleagues.

Lest we forget, however, the man is 76 years old. He’s already surpassed the life expectancy of the average American male. The barrage of news footage about his illness and the subsequent outpouring of grief and shock only underscores the boomer generation’s obsession with life and death and the narrow, frightening gap in between.

In the meantime, those same reports are being greeted by the newest media-friendly generation with a yawn and one question: “Who’s that white-haired old man on TV that everyone’s making such a big fuss about?” They want Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers. They read manga and have never known a world in which a personal computer didn’t grace the living rooms of every home. They’re so young, they don’t even have a generation moniker yet. (Although I hear “millenials” is a contender.)

And all I have to say is: Where the hell did MY generation go?

Remember Generation X? The teeny-tiny demographic born roughly between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s and who number around 43 million, the smallest of all the 20th-century generations? The group who grew up under the Reagan administration, under the shadow of the Cold War and who remember when MTV only played music videos? The generation once described by Time magazine as one with just a “hazy sense of its own identity” and yet obsessed with the problems their parents (i.e., the boomers) will eventually bequeath to them? The kids who may know who Ted Kennedy is but who are more enthralled by Clinton and the prosperity he helped usher in as we came of age?

Once upon a time, we X-ers faced a mountain of criticism from boomers for what they perceived as our lack of a work ethic. What they didn’t see, however, was the workforce we entered and had inherited, one where layoffs are considered routine and job security no longer exists. Boomers wanting to remain an active part of society aren’t in a big hurry to retire, so not only are there fewer upper-level jobs available to us, we’re also facing an attack from the rear as energetic, eager-to-please and entry-level Y workers graduate from college and wave their freshly minted diplomas and sense of entitlement along with their aversion to so-called “grunt work.”

We’re the generation who’ll be struggling to finance the boomers’ retirement at the same time that we hope to god that we won’t be laid off or fired because our jobs were shipped to India, China or the Philippines. We’ll be the ones facing a retirement of our own without the fragile safety net of Social Security. We were at the forefront of the dot-com boom, recognizing the power of the Internet and its ability to literally transform the world as we know it, but our own influence on its development has diminished and is now dominated by the likes of Facebook creator and Y-er Mark Zuckerberg.

Largely because of our relatively small size, those of us in our 30s and early 40s are now feeling a little forgotten by the media and society. Where once we had a small but powerful culture that reflected our unique status — books by Douglas Coupland, music by Pearl Jam, clothing by thrift shop — we’re now just a blip on the radar. We’re slowly making our way up the management ranks and are still quietly building businesses, but now the faces you see on TV and magazines are either the preternaturally unlined faces of boomers indulging in Botox or the toothy grins of Hannah Montana and Dakota Fanning. Even the aging Indiana Jones has succumbed to the allure of the Y generation: Rather than passing the torch on to an up-and-coming archaeologist with a few digs and adventures under his belt, the hero of countless X kids has instead chosen a smooth-skinned Y boy in the latest installment of the series. The guy doesn’t even look old enough to shave yet.

We may not command the kind of demographic force that the 80 million-plus Y-ers wield, but we X-ers are still here, thank you very much. I’d love to see more books, movies, newspaper articles and TV shows dissect our lives, loves and lusts, just as they’ve done for the boomers, Y-ers and millenials. We’re just as self-obsessed as they are; we just need someone to cater to that craving for recognition. Where once we were dismissed as lazy slackers who refused to get “real” jobs, we’re now largely responsible for ushering in one of the wildest and most successful revolutions in history, that of the Internet. Give us some credit. We may not be big, but we’re still a force to be reckoned with.

Marjorie Asturias-Lochlaer is a freelance writer living in Grand Junction. Reach her at marjorie.asturias@gmail.com.