I sometimes look back on the things I thought as a child, teen, or 20-something and I'm slightly embarassed. That being said I really wonder where a 35 year old version of myself will stand in relation to myself now. At 27 have I finally latched onto a respectable track?
Its not a grave concern, but I always try to take it a little slower. I watch most of my friends sacrafice time and socilization to go after master's degrees and doctorates. I don't know what they're thinking. Maybe its some sort of artists temperment, but I'm always watching life from the third person. And so now when I'm thinking of what life will look like now from 8 years on, everythings little specs in a sprawling city of bright lights. When I think back to my life as, say, a 23 year old, its from a distance, theres just people riding in train cars and busese. I can watch the successes and rejections from a lunar-distance and pretend it was all a story. I'm not the same person now as I was then, and maybe it helps to distance myself.
I seem to review everything floating high above the city, watching where I was and where the large picture was headed. What went on downtown that New Years Eve I spent making sure you didn't puke on the floor. When we watched bad netflix choices and ate leftovers that wouldn't upset your stomach. I never know who these women are, but I've got a bad feeling their all placeholders in a narritive I've written for myself. I'd guess I date the ones that come closest to fitting the mold, but like an old literary idol of mine, I'm still trying to close a West Egg gap that I can never find a bridge for.
Last night I couldn't sleep, and I thought of all the conversations I would have if I ever ran into the ex's of mine. Who would get the ire I'd promised when it was freshly ended, who I never really stopped thinking about and what i'd tell them. I'm less angry as an older man, and less paraoid; fewer things really bother me. I'm wondering if its all the narration I'm using when I watch the world these days. As a reactionary teen, everything was immediate. Post-grad I'm adjusting. At 35 will I be world apart?
Maybe I'll just become one with nature like the Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong, fading into the landscape and all that crap. I never did like Jewett anyhow.
1 comments:
Time has a strange effect on the memory of oneself my friend.
As the years unfold and ones age increases, those years once remembered well become moulded by the 'older' mind and transform into something quite different.
I often allow my mind to return to those younger days as an angry young man. It ends with a smile and a shake of the head.
Now, my childhood. That's quite a different story. All those memories, I remember well.
How I yearn for that unspent youth.
Regards,
The MB Thinker.
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