So I was listening to the radio and that old Bruce Springsteen song popped up Glory Days you know the song about how middle aged people just sit around and talk about the younger days and it hits me... I'm in that age range that he's singing about. And it proves it just by the fact that I sat there and listened to the whole song instead of forwarding it on to the next one (that and I was too lazy to switch over from the computer game I was playing) So as I'm singing along with Bruce... and my husband is in the next room chuckling and shaking his head... I'm defending my right to sing. And I realize there's really nothing about that song that reaches me. I have no desire to revisit my old life. I wouldn't do it all over again if you PAID me and you would have to offer me a lot of money for me to even consider it.
When I left high school I was sad. Most of my close friends graduated a year or two before me. So when I left there was not love lost. Definitely not for that striped sesame street inspired carpet that identified the various units. I'm not sure anyone from my graduating class would even remember me if I went to a high school reunion. I've spent most of my life trying to blend in instead of standing out, so that I would be considered normal. (which wasn't easy then and certainly didn't get any easier with age) And the school years before high school I can't even name all of the schools without looking at the transcripts. I have a number of people that stood out in my mind from my time spent with them... But as I found out recently they don't always remember the past the same way I did. One girl swears that I stole $20 from her right before I moved out of state. I didn't remember that but I mailed her the money so we would be square... But that just reinforced the idea that people's memories change as they move away from the friends and time.
I've also done STUPID things that would never want to remember or relive over a couple of drinks. Why would I want to put a rosy glow on some of my dumbest stunts in my life? Back when I thought I was invincible and infallible, it's a credit to my sheer dumb luck that I've made it to the age that I have with out being found dead in a ditch somewhere or just bludgeoned to death by someone for my overwhelming stupidity and arrogance. And sometimes I'll hear a teen making the same type of certain proclamations that I did in my day and it's all I can do to bite my tongue and tell them just how WRONG they are. But you can't every generation has to make the same mistakes themselves before they learn. Every person thinks they're bullet-proof until they find out that they aren't.
And I'm sure that when I'm even older and I look back on this stage in my life... I'll realize that the things that I thought I knew now weren't as true as I KNEW them to be and I'll shake my head over it and move on with my life. But today I'm happy in my delusions of today, and that I don't dwell over the past too much. Certainly not enough to want to relive it.
