Where does the time go? It feels like just a few years ago I was an annoying obnoxious bratty kid and now I look at myself in the mirror and I see an annoying bratty middle-aged adult. Time does seem to fly by but I really do not have much in my life that I truly can complain about. I like my world right now; it has taken decades but I am finally very comfortable living in my skin (maybe I’m more comfortable because between the extra weight and the sagging I now have more skin to live in). I still get excited about the future, but sometimes I can’t help but wish I could climb into the past and spend just a little more time within a certain time or place from long ago.
I remember talking to my Mom back when she was approaching 50 years old and I was still in Junior High. She mentioned that as a kid ‘50 always seemed very old’ to her and since she was almost there, she was having a hard time adjusting to her body being that old yet her mind still looking at the universe as a young woman. I have never forgotten that conversation. I not only understand it more as time passes, I have also braced myself over the years for the feeling. Now that I am not far from the same age she was when we had that talk, I see that my own views and reactions might have modified with maturity and age but I still see the world through the same eyes I always have.
My opinions on many different issues have changed and grown over the years but my core belief system is really the same since I was young. Who I am has not changed with age. I might be a bit mischievous but I think I am good person. I find comfort in the fact that I believe I have always been and will always be essentially the same person I am today.
What I found funny as a kid, I still laugh at now. Like the fact that I still find humor in the lyrics I wrote, printed and handed out to my 6th grade classmates before a school-wide assembly performance. It still makes me laugh that I got a bunch of 11 year old kids to sing my rewritten words of “Country Roads take me home to the place I belong West Virginia…” that included two references to the lower female genitalia and one to homosexuality. I still find a twisted humor in the fact that 15 years ago my buddy Mike and I taunted people playing nickel slot machines in Vegas by rolling dimes at them and that I got a table of 20 Asians to on my cue stand up in unison in a restaurant and announce to my startled table that ‘Dan L is Number One”.
Much to the chagrin of the people around me, I think my sense of humor will be unaffected by my age. I have always pictured myself as a feeble old man walking around the mall in mismatched clothing pulling my false teeth out in front of young kids and gumming the words “this is your future’. When you are very old you can get away with all kinds of stuff that no one would tolerate when your young. There are of course the aches and pains that come with old age but that is the price you pay for living to an age that you do not have to worry about impressing anyone anymore. I’m sure I will find great pleasure as a 90 year old man going through the express lane at the grocery store at 6pm with 40 items and making the growing crowd behind me wait as I have the cashier read me back the price of each item already in the cart as I decide what I can actually afford to write a check out for.
The type of woman I was attracted to as a teenager discovering my sexuality is still what I like now. I assume that will not change, as I get older. I guess that explains why very old men lust after young woman; they still desire that same ‘type’ that they first fell for as a kid. Since they see the world with the same eyes as they did as a kid, the ‘look’ they lust for does not age along with them. For the record I am not sure if this is true for me. (Here is where a smart man would say something very nice about his wife but proving I am as foolish as I was as a kid…) I thought Bernadette Peters was way hot when I was 12 years old and I still think she is hot today.
Here I am. Older and maybe even a tiny little bit wiser but I cannot control how fast time just keeps rushing by. Friends who I want to see every few weeks drift farther away as the space between visits roll from week to month to year. I do not mind personally growing older but I hate that the space and time between myself and the people I love, grows with the passing time as well. I again would like to take this moment to tell the people in my life how much I treasure their love and friendship. I am a better person because of the influences you have all been on my life.
I remember talking to my Mom back when she was approaching 50 years old and I was still in Junior High. She mentioned that as a kid ‘50 always seemed very old’ to her and since she was almost there, she was having a hard time adjusting to her body being that old yet her mind still looking at the universe as a young woman. I have never forgotten that conversation. I not only understand it more as time passes, I have also braced myself over the years for the feeling. Now that I am not far from the same age she was when we had that talk, I see that my own views and reactions might have modified with maturity and age but I still see the world through the same eyes I always have.
My opinions on many different issues have changed and grown over the years but my core belief system is really the same since I was young. Who I am has not changed with age. I might be a bit mischievous but I think I am good person. I find comfort in the fact that I believe I have always been and will always be essentially the same person I am today.
What I found funny as a kid, I still laugh at now. Like the fact that I still find humor in the lyrics I wrote, printed and handed out to my 6th grade classmates before a school-wide assembly performance. It still makes me laugh that I got a bunch of 11 year old kids to sing my rewritten words of “Country Roads take me home to the place I belong West Virginia…” that included two references to the lower female genitalia and one to homosexuality. I still find a twisted humor in the fact that 15 years ago my buddy Mike and I taunted people playing nickel slot machines in Vegas by rolling dimes at them and that I got a table of 20 Asians to on my cue stand up in unison in a restaurant and announce to my startled table that ‘Dan L is Number One”.
Much to the chagrin of the people around me, I think my sense of humor will be unaffected by my age. I have always pictured myself as a feeble old man walking around the mall in mismatched clothing pulling my false teeth out in front of young kids and gumming the words “this is your future’. When you are very old you can get away with all kinds of stuff that no one would tolerate when your young. There are of course the aches and pains that come with old age but that is the price you pay for living to an age that you do not have to worry about impressing anyone anymore. I’m sure I will find great pleasure as a 90 year old man going through the express lane at the grocery store at 6pm with 40 items and making the growing crowd behind me wait as I have the cashier read me back the price of each item already in the cart as I decide what I can actually afford to write a check out for.
The type of woman I was attracted to as a teenager discovering my sexuality is still what I like now. I assume that will not change, as I get older. I guess that explains why very old men lust after young woman; they still desire that same ‘type’ that they first fell for as a kid. Since they see the world with the same eyes as they did as a kid, the ‘look’ they lust for does not age along with them. For the record I am not sure if this is true for me. (Here is where a smart man would say something very nice about his wife but proving I am as foolish as I was as a kid…) I thought Bernadette Peters was way hot when I was 12 years old and I still think she is hot today.
Here I am. Older and maybe even a tiny little bit wiser but I cannot control how fast time just keeps rushing by. Friends who I want to see every few weeks drift farther away as the space between visits roll from week to month to year. I do not mind personally growing older but I hate that the space and time between myself and the people I love, grows with the passing time as well. I again would like to take this moment to tell the people in my life how much I treasure their love and friendship. I am a better person because of the influences you have all been on my life.
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