Twenty-eight years.

The Glorious 1990s.

A better time, it seems.

And on this day, in 1997, incomprehensively worse.

If you were around then, you remember. It was a Saturday night, and I was over at my brother’s house, using the internet. My own computer was so ancient, it couldn’t handle the internet, but I could get email, something baffling to my friends. How could you get one without the other? Well, it was happening. I was over at my brother’s house looking for information about Puerto Rico. I’d be going there two days later.

Funny the things you remember. There had been a boil water alert a couple days before, but my brother, being paranoid, was still boiling water. I heard a crash of glass while I was in the computer room. Apparently a glass lid had exploded. Bits of hot glass were gluing themselves to the vinyl floor.

I think the television was on; I vaguely heard bits saying Princess Diana had been in a car crash in Paris.

Shortly after, I went home. Dad was in the recliner, the news also on, watching the coverage. We watched and watched, and then the announcement came she had died.

I don’t think I cried, I remember feeling stunned. I was preoccupied by my trip, and I didn’t watch the funeral either. I was in Puerto Rico at the time, and a friend had unexpectedly joined me down there. I think we were out exploring during the funeral. Either that, or asleep.

I had a fascination with the British Royal Family. So elegant, yet so fucked up. I wondered how Queen Elizabeth felt about it all. She seemed so very hardworking, so dedicated to her position; how could it be her children couldn’t stay married? And got involved in all sorts of crazy shit?

One could argue that she believed her job as queen meant that came first. It’s not a job she had expected to get, but her uncle decided love was better than the throne, and he gave it up. That seems like an incredibly brave choice considering that Wallis Simpson was twice divorced. He couldn’t be sure that his marriage would last, and that he would have given up a throne for nothing.

But the marriage did last.

I had high respect for Queen Elizabeth. For someone who didn’t expect the job but had it foisted on her, I always wondered if she resented her uncle. What would her life had been like if she hadn’t been queen? Would she have been like Princess Margaret, freewheeling and outrageous, but deeply unhappy, as it seems the royals are when it comes to love and marriage?

The only way I felt she put a foot wrong was after Diana died. She had to have known how beloved Diana was. To not acknowledge her death or at least address the nation was incredibly stupid. Yes, she said she was protecting Diana’s sons, but come on now. Just because she was trained to never show emotion in public didn’t mean all of England had to maintain a stiff upper lip too.

I know I couldn’t be in that position and not be emotional. I’m too emotional. A particular song, an amazing floor exercise routine or skating program, all of that chokes me up. A particular scene in a movie. So many things set me off.

So yeah, for Queen Elizabeth, good job. But huge PR blunder when your finest ambassador for royalty died and you wouldn’t speak to your people until the prime minister and your son suggested (or was it demanded?) you do so.

And it’s been 28 years. Strange how fast life goes by.

And it’s also strange how some things never seem to change, for some people.

I hope Diana is resting in peace, knowing that no matter how the royal family felt about her, she was beloved worldwide. I wonder about life. It seemed like it was jam-packed for her, only for it to be over when she was 36.

She’d lived half of her life at age 18.

I was an idiot kid then.

And if she could have done it all over again, would she had given it up to marry someone less well known, who hadn’t had a past lover he couldn’t quite let go of?

Would she have married at all?

Would she be just another nameless, faceless, senior citizen housewife now?

It’s just a shame what happened.