I have a confession to make.

I'm going to miss Michael Jackson.

To paraphrase a quote from www.twitter.com heard at the end of his memorial service yesterday, which the media of course swarmed with their usual sensationalist fervor, "his music has provided part of the soundtrack of my life. It has been there through every decade. What am I going to do now that he is gone?"

The very first (and last - vinyl was in it's death throes even in the early 80's) record album I ever received as a gift was "Thriller". My parents bought it for me for my birthday, probably third grade, which would have been 1983, a whole year after it had been released. I was all of 8 years old.

I still have it.

And I confess that I recently pulled it out and put it on my decrepit excuse for a turntable for the first time in years. And I listened to it, even though the belt played it a degree slower than it should have, and I relived all of those silly childhood afternoons when I would beg my mom to let me play it so I could dance to Beat It, PYT, and Thriller; sing along to Human Nature and The Girl is Mine; clumsily moonwalk to Billie Jean.

And I cried.

I cried not just for the loss of Michael Jackson, I cried for the loss of my childhood.

I cried for the memories of my grandmother, who I lost the same year I got "Thriller" for my birthday.

I cried for all of those safe, secure nights of watching Solid Gold on Saturday night in my parents living room, and all of the memories that those songs hold for me, because they were the soundtrack of my childhood.

And the man who provided that is gone.

For the first time, my generation is facing the loss of an icon who has been there since we were born, and I don't doubt that I'm not the only Generation X'er out there who is struggling with what it means on a more personal level.

It means that eventually we all must face our own mortality, and question what sort of legacy we will leave behind when we are gone.

What sort of legacy will I leave behind? I don't know, but I ultimately hope that people will remember me for the positive and set aside the negative, just as I hope that they do for Michael Jackson, because in the end, the good that we do during our brief time in this existence is what truly counts.