I am officially a total geek right now.
I am listening to the Batman soundtrack (the Danny Elfman score, not that Prince monstrosity) on my PC speakers while I type this.
I think it’s appropriate, because I’m writing this morning about those really awesome days of youth, when nobody understands you, your parents are completely unreasonable, and you can’t wait to grow up.
During those days in my life, the Batman score competed with Black Celebration and Only a Lad for air time in my car. It was part of the soundtrack of my life.
Last night, I was watching the History Channel, and this commercial for some 80s super box set comes on. It’s pretty standard for an 80s collection: there’s Foreigner and Journey, as well as some Crowded House and Howard Jones (yeah, I thought that was a weird mix, too.)
While I’m watching this commercial, I start to feel this completely overwhelming sadness. This type of massive sadness that starts so deeply within me, I can’t even define its origin in a physical location. It was sadness coming out of my soul. I get this feeling that I can only describe as “hyper-nostalgia.”
So I’m sitting there in bed, my cat snuggled up to me on one side, my wife sound asleep on the other side, and I start to silently weep, as this David Fincheresque montage of childhood images and feelings races through my mind. I can feel my fear and nervousness the first morning I went to public high school in 9th grade. I can feel the excitement of standing in line to see Batman, in Westwood, at 9AM a few weeks before it opened. I see faces of friends long forgotten, and places which were teenage hangouts that don’t even exist anymore. I feel pain, love, hope…but mostly, I feel sadness and regret that is completely overwhelming.
It’s like I’m sitting in my bed, mourning the passing of my youth.
It’s not that my life is totally miserable now, it’s just so much more complicated than it was when I was a child, and I haven’t really stopped to think about that in quite some time.
I mean, I would gladly trade wondering whatever bullshit my wife’s ex-husband is going to pull today for not being able to stay out past 12 with my friends.
I would gleefully trade worrying about making mortgage payments for…well, for anything, really! 🙂
Every time I go to Paramount, I look around and I think to myself, “man, I had it so good here. Too bad I was too young and arrogant to realize that.” But that could be a series of entries, all on it’s own.
When I go up to my parent’s house, and go to my old bedroom, I can see in my mind the phantoms of my teenage years: Watchmen comics bagged and hung on the walls. Depeche Mode concert posters above my bed, where my cat Ziggy would be sleeping. Stacks of GURPS source books on the floor, and, of course, my Mac II, complete with smokin’ fast 2400 baud modem.
I miss all of these things, and writing about them now I can really feel a sense of loss, and longing. I just closed my eyes, and I could see things in my old bedroom that I haven’t thought about in years: 82 Los Angeles Kings season ticket stubs from 1988-89, taped to the wall next to my computer, underneath this simply dreadful fantasy-art poster I bought at a game con that same year. A clump of silly string mashed into the cottage cheese stuff on the ceiling, above my bed. Five book shelves, filled with VHS copies of the entire collection of 79 episodes of Star Trek.
I recently visited one of my best friends from high school, who moved into his mom and dad’s house when they moved out. It’s the same house we hung out in when we were young, but now his kids are running around in it…and I can still see the path we wore through the ivy, going up the hill to my house. The house is the same, but it’s so very, very different now.
My best friend Darin is getting married in just a few weeks. Darin and I have known each other since I was 14 and he was 16. We have done just about everything together, and crossed lots of major bridges together on our way to adulthood. I’ve been married with kids for 2 years, but never felt like it was that big a deal…it’s HIM getting married that makes me feel like we’re finally adults, with mortgages and responsibilities. When he is married, we will have crossed another major rubicon together.
So when I saw this commercial last night, it hit me: I’m turning 30 in 3 months.
Three months, man.
I am the primary father figure to two kids, one of whom will be a teenager two days after I turn 30.
A teenager, man.
I am going to be the parent to a teenager, and I’m going to be 30. I don’t know why that’s fucking with me as much as it is, but it sure is burning a lot of cycles in my brain.
Thing is, I know that I’ll be 40 someday, and I’ll look back and think, “Man, I thought things were so messed up at 30…and I was so wrong,” as I watch Ryan graduate from college, or get married, or whatever.
But right now, I miss those wonderful days in the late 80s and early 90s, when I couldn’t wait for the weekend, so I could hang out at Darin’s house and play GURPS and Illuminatti, before heading out to the movies to catch whatever crappy Lethal Weapon movie was in theatres.
I totally understand that saying about youth being wasted on the young. I guess that’s the beauty of childhood: we don’t know how tough life is going to get when we grow up, so we cavalierly waste time, blissfully ignorant of how valuable our youth is going to be to us, late one night when we can’t sleep, because we’re thinking about paying bills.
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I love you so much honey…but Damn you could make a movie from that!!! I thought my head was f**ked!!!
I am 23 in 2 months and feel like my life is over so…i know what its like to be overcome with emotion at the things that remind you of the good/bad times!
it kinda reminded me of all those “the way it was movies” you could write a movie of your life and you’re ONLY 29….
Don’t dispair it would be worse for us if we could go back….
Love,light and peace
Andrea
I may only be 23, but damn can I relate to what you’re saying. I went through this exact stage last summer… I bought the old Sweet Valley High books (ok, I’m sure you don’t remember SVH since they were chick books, but you dig) and I sat at the computer downloading the credits to old 80’s cartoons like Inspector Gadget and the Getalong Gang. Remember those??
Ahh… I get teary eyed just thinking about it.
Glad to know I’m not alone.
once again I’m impressed at the depth of your writing, and the ability to express what all of us, more or less, are feeling these days.
My best friend from middle and high school is getting divorced. Bloody divorced, man. Divorce is something that happens to older people, to adults, who can handle the pressure, who wimp out and take the easy way out…. or at least, that’s what it used to be. Now it’s a fact of life, and when I think of how close I have come to that too, it’s scary. Mortgage, job, baby, BABY, me for crying out loud with a daughter who is just barely walking and throwing food on the ground when she eats.
gee whiz. thanks for the post, Wil.
Hey, Wil,
I’ll be 45 in July.
I married my wife when I was 39. (I had never been married, or engaged, before.)
We have 5-year-old and 2-year-old sons, and sometime in the next 3 weeks, we’ll have a newborn son.
I’m tired all the time and I worry about money a lot. Mortgage, bills, Catholic school this coming fall…
We’re closing on the refinancing of our house tomorrow, for God’s sake.
I’ve bought maybe one CD in the last year.
I haven’t had a drink of alcohol since January of 1987.
Fortunately, my family is what really matters to me. I don’t want to be as responsible as I am, but I choose to do the best I can for my kids and my wife, at least most of the time.
I take my hat off to you, 29 years old with a wife and two stepsons, one of them almost a teenager! There’s no way in hell I could have done what you’re doing at your age, as far as relationships and family are concerned. Particularly when it comes to bullshit-pulling ex-husbands.
I know you’re happy with your life, and I hope you’re also very proud of yourself and your accomplishments.
Have a great day.
I hear ya. I get the same feelings. But I ask myself why I’d want to turn back the clock…things are good now, really good. Back then, I had no money, no idea how I’d get by in the world once I was “all growed up.” But I also didn’t care. We were old enough to make our own choices but young enough that consequences weren’t a concern…a short-lived combination (which is probably for the better).
Heh heh.
I’m 35.
Celibacy, getting winded lifting the remote, minivan, living in your fucking backyard pulling dandelions every goddamned day.
You get used to living without hope.
Without a future.
You will too, Uncle Willie.
Soon…
Oh.
Say, within six months after turning 30, all remnants of your previous life will have been crushed out never to be reignited again.
Then…
You spend the next fifty years planning on who’s gonna get your shit when you die.
But check it out…
Spudnuts has an ACE-IN-THE-HOLE.
My ace?
I got me a full head of hair.
Oh yeah.
No, this isn’t just a nice sort of cover-job to stave off MPB. This is a motherfucking kudzu-heap of insurance on top of my dome which…
Will.
Not.
Yield.
To the ravages of Big Daddy Entropy.
Fucker.
This head of hair makes my barber weep with envy. Sometimes I have to keep my eye on him to make sure he doesn’t stab me in the back of my head and STEAL MY HAIR.
AND my brain.
Which is pretty good too.
So.
Yeah, I’m old.
Yeah, I got the family thing to crush my mortal soul.
Yep.
But…
I got that hair, fucker.
Oops.
Forgot the T in my name.
See?
Pretty damned soon I won’t even know where I live. I’ll be crrapping in my hand and trying to use it as currency to buy a copy of Newsweek at the Circle K.
But even as I am attempting to exchange my own feces for a completely different heap of feces…
I’ll have my hair.
Suck on THAT, Michael Eisner, you BITCH!
you forgot the thought for the day
Suggested:
“If you could toss your troubles in a circle with everyone else, and you had to pull out ANY one of the troubles you found there, you would certainly take back your own.”
Oh man, do I know how you feel. I was moving some of my things out of my parents basement this weekend, when I found all of these boxes full of old School stuff. Why in the world I kept Algebra homework from 8th grade is beyond me.
Another box had stacks of those teen magazines from the 80’s. I had a little side business going in Middle School trading posters with other girls. And wouldn’t you know that our Wil was in a lot of those magazines. Yeah, I too, had a mild crush. How emberrassing it is to try and explain that away to my husband now.
Well, anyway, Wil thanks for the memories.
Just think about it wil, turning 30 is not as bad as turning 40. Your not 30 yet either and it’s not that old man! my mom stresses about being 50, you’re in your prime!!!!
And as for Ryan, tell him from a person with 3 years experience at being a teenager; yeah it’s bad and it sucks sometimes but just smile and be as happy as possible. Don’t take your parents for granted either, they always ove you no matter what.
Be happy Wil, a guy as talented and cool as you has got to have a life span of at least 100, you’re not even half way through yet!
There’s my philosophy for today, sorry it took so much room…just get carried away!
Luv Sal
Oh.
And one other thing…
Youth SUCKED.
Now…
I got me some sweet tech toys, can hop a plane any goddamned time I feel like it to… you know… eat chalupas at Disneyland, bitch, and catch a Lakers game, buy some spudnuts.
Fuck the 80’s.
Fucking whoppers and Stove Top Stuffing. Jesus Christ. I can get me some kimchee and tasty Indian foodstuffs whose names I cannot pronounce or watch some cool DVDs on my iBook while shitting, consume premium espresso beverages.
Motherfucker!
I can talk to Wesley Crusher from my goddamned toilet!
And, fella, Ronald Reagan was worse than Dubya.
Fuck nostalgia.
What?
You’d trade eating cucumber sammiches with Dan Quayle for playing hot blues harmonica post-dodgeball with Tiffany?
Shit.
Get your fucking priorities straight.
Imo go get me some spicy tuna roll.
Gotta say I envy Spudnuts his full head of hair.
It’s probably not gray, either, is it?
Since I was not really alive whilst you were a real youngster, seeing that I am almost the big 23, you must put this in focus. You do not remember everything that happened in the days of yore. For Christ sake, one of my roommates is 30 and he used to have a mullet, and he listened to Dokken. The 80’s were hell man! Sure there are a few things I miss, all day “Lost In Space” marathons, freeze tag, red bat baseball, but the sun will rise another day. And as an adult, well, kind of, you can do all the things you never could, like buy BB guns, swords, Transformers the Movie, pr0n, all the Legos you want, and best of all, you can appreciate all that free stuff your parents gave you, and you never said “thanks” unless they told you to. Also, you can hold hands with the one you love in public without getting cooties. No regrets.
I know how you feel, Wil. The irony is that we spend the first 18 or so years of our lives running like hell to get away from home, and the rest of our lives trying to get back there. (I don’t mean go back and live with our parents… I mean the don’t have many worries compared to now, didn’t have to pay the bills, was covered by someone else’s insurance, always had someone to turn to whenever I needed it comfort of childhood.)
The best way to deal with it?
Roll over and give your wife a hug. Celebrate your birthday with your kid’s birthday. Remember that if you got to go back to that age, you’d have to go back to that level of stupidity and ignorance as well( Let’s face it, compared to ourselves now, we were IDIOTS. If you AREN’T smarter than you were ten/fifteen/whatever years ago, then bury yourself, ’cause you’re dead, you just haven’t fallen down yet).
I wonder what could of been of my life if I had taken another road.
Dude, lighten the fark up! would you really want to do 17 all over again? Turning 30 was great, you’re comfortable in your own skin & with who you are, you’ve got more confidence, less concerned with what everyone else thinks-you’re your own person, and the sex is pretty great too.
I’ll be 38 in 26 days, holy crap! 40 is just around the corner.
Who gives a shit-it’s all a state of mind, truely-life just keeps getting better-even with the mortgage, braces, teenagers…….have a couple cocktails and celebrate where you are now compared to where & who you were then-now is better, definitely.
sharfa
I’ve been there so many times before. Maturity is the salve that soothes the pain of lost youth. Embrace your increase in years gracefully. It really isn’t all that bad. Once you get to my age you can start to backslide into your second childhood…….I know how it’s done and it’s fun! Just think all of the fun of a teenager and all that experience!
Oh god, Wil. I just celebrated my 35th birthday on April 9th. I was so irritable!! and every time the ffing phone rang with well-wishers I wanted to scream. Birthdays should not be like this. Cheer up, thirty wasn’t that bad! It’s the “35? OH MY GOD I ONLY HAVE 5 YEARS LEFT IN THE 30s” scare that really gets you. And might I add that you are aging well, you don’t look thirty so rock on!! 😀
I turn 29 in September. I’ve been married for 8 years this July and have 2 kids and a mortgage. My 10 yr reunion is this October. I’ve often found myself reminiscing over my lost youth. But ya know, I wouldn’t trade what I have now for anything. I don’t foresee 30 as being a huge deal to me, because I’m comfortable with my life, past AND present.
In turning 30, one thing is giving up, a little, the sweet, sunny, exuberant feeling of being a young and new, running into the wind. Thinking of all the unseen places and things to experience. The song “Yesterday, by Roy Clark” reminds me of the color and feeling of those times.
“Yesterday when I was young the taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue. I teased at life as if it were a foolish game. The way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame.
A thousand dreams I dreamed the splendid things I planned, I always built to last on weak and shifting sand. I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day. And only now I see how the years ran away.
“Yesterday when I was young, so many happy songs were waiting to be sung. So many wild pleasures lay in store for me, and so much pain my dazzled yes refused to see.
I rans so fast that time and youth at last ran out. I never stoped to think what life was all about, and every conversation I can now recall concerns itself with me and nothing else at all.
Yesterday the moon was blue, and every crazy day broguth something new to do. I Used my magic age as if it were a wand, and never saw the waste and emptiness beyond. The game of love I played with arrogance and pride, and every flame I lit too quickly quickly died…
I think it’s good to be able to feel deeply the feelings of life, the changing seasons of time. And to know we can keep some things about being young if we really really want to.
My 16th birthday was last friday so I have been thinking about when I was youger a lot too. I am 16 now, 16! Thats 2 years away from 18! Then in two more years I will be 20! Its really scary to think about.
Wow. All I can say is….wow.
And bummer.
Uncle Willy you seem to be going thru a mid life
crisis a bit early…but eh, what a long strange
trip its been…so you are entitled, I’m sure.
It will be okay. Breathe.
Wow. It’s so nice to know I’m not the only one who thinks about such things – the past, how did I get here, where has the time gone, bittersweet memories. I still wonder, perhaps more than I should, what ever happened to friends I used to have, people I used to know.
When I read the part about closing your eyes and visualizing your old room, I stopped and did the same. Amazing, I can still hear the Paula Abdul. I’m not exactly old (24), but I like being older. As a teenager I was always frustrated because society today seems to dismiss teenagers. Everything is a “phase”.. Being told my choice of career was a “phase” was on of the most frustrating things about being a teen. I’m lucky, I knew what I wanted to do when I was 15, and I’m still doing it. But man oh man did the kids mock me and my parents try to discourage me.
That feels like yesterday as much as it feels like a lifetime ago. I think no matter how old you are, as long as you’re learning and growing and aware of who you’ve been, you’ll always come out on top eventually.
-CarolP
Wil, the funny thing is, I bet most people think of you as “that kid from Star Trek.” Unlike a lot of child celebrities, you’ve made something of yourself since then- you have a loving family, you seem pretty successful in the projects you take on, and of course, you have all of us!
I totally understand what you’re going through (I’ve been thinking the same way for a long time now), but hell, being our age is pretty damn good too. As long as you live every day as if it’s the most important, that’s what counts.
I just watched that “Inner Light” episode of TNG, so sue me. 😉
I just turned 29 three days ago, I know what you mean by “hyper-nostalgia”. By the way, I have to listen to “The ‘Burbs” by Jerry Goldsmith to recall my memories. Well…
You write so well.
A song comes to mind: “There are places I remember, all my life, though some have changed.”
I can’t believe I’m right at that age when I can experience “hyper-nostalgia”. Just two days ago, I was thinking about the same things. The mark of crayon on the tile of my childhood bedroom from when a loud clap of thunder made me jump when I was coloring. Or the iron bed frame on the top bunk of the bed my sister slept in that I would hit my head on every morning. My best friend who would rush to my house every after noon to watch Saturday Morning Cartoons because she didn’t have a TV. man I’m getting misty eyed.
Just remember what I always remember, Wil – “I may have to get old, but you can’t make me do it with dignity”.
Wil,
I’m turning 32 in May. I feel every ounce of loss you are. I still am! But let me tell you what did an old man good.
Pass on to your kids all the crazy stupid stuff you did, take them on a tour of your old stomping gounds. Don’t hold anything back for fear of warping their tender little minds. Yhey’ll ask you stuff that’ll just make the memories more vivid, and thus letting your children see that dad’s not just a big grumpy bossy guy that was never a kid.
Don’t know why but it seemed to make things “better.” Like a big sigh that says ‘It’s cool’
Spudnuts shoots! He scores! The crowd goes wild!
Thank God for hair, that’s all I have to say.
Discovered your site on FARK (where else?). Been reading it everyday now for a month or so. I’m only 18, but once in a while something reminds me of how things used to be only.. 9-10 years ago and ask myself why the hell I didn’t appreciate it more. That’s just the thing, when you ARE that young you’re just TOO young to appreciate it. So when you look back, older and hopefully wiser, you have something to contrast to. “Those were the days.. but now is THE day” kinda.. ish. May just be talking outta my ass, but I hear you loud ‘n’ clear. Keep up the writing, you’re my hero man.
I’m right there with you, Wil. And I thought I was the only one feeling these overwhelming senses of longing for the way things used to be.
What really f’s me up are the random triggers… Counting change at the laundromat and remembering my first day of work at Burger King when I was 14; breathing the early morning air and reminiscing about the 8 summers I worked at a summer camp in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota; the scent of Obsession and my first kiss in junior high… Ah, good times…
Okay, now I’m depressed again. Smurf off, Wil!
I’m 25 going on 26 in just a few weeks. I’ve been feeling *really* nostalgic lately. I found a box of things in my basement a few weeks ago. Just some old stuff of mine that I just can’t seem to bring myself to throw away. An old “Darth Vader” keychain, a very worn cassette of “Good for your Soul” (Oingo Boingo), a copy of a really bad demo tape that I once did with my best friend in High School (which is really all I have left of him, as we had a serious falling out and haven’t talked in nearly 4 years now..), a drawing of a dragon that I did years ago, while sitting in the car, in an old cemetary, with the first girl I ever fell in love with.., my first d20 and a couple worn character sheets, my first drivers license, and other things.. I sat and just cryed over the box for about an hour..
I also think it’s cool to find somebody else that was also a Boingo fan.. that was our theme music.. 🙂
I wish I hadn’t read Spudnuts’ entry.
Spudnuts wrote:
> I can talk to Wesley Crusher from my goddamned toilet!
I’m just glad he didn’t say “Uncle Willy” or I’d have never gotten that image out of my head.
–NT
I wish I hadn’t read Spudnuts’ entry.
Spudnuts wrote:
> I can talk to Wesley Crusher from my goddamned toilet!
I’m just glad he didn’t say “Uncle Willy” or I’d have never gotten that image out of my head.
–NT
I wish I hadn’t read Spudnuts’ entry.
Spudnuts wrote:
> I can talk to Wesley Crusher from my goddamned toilet!
I’m just glad he didn’t say “Uncle Willy” or I’d have never gotten that image out of my head.
–NT
I think Pink Floyd said it best
Ticking away the moments that make up the dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find that ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or a half page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in a quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone the song is over, thought i’d something more to say
I turn thirty in two months. I’m still capable of having a teenage crush on Thom Yorke. I still decorate my room with Clash posters. I still spend entirely too much money on childish bullshit, and I have a ten year old son that I adopted out that I still have contact with. It fucks with my head. You have my sympathies.
Oh, and another thing: I was told by a friend that your twenties are just a dress rehearsal for your thirties, and that you feel relieved that you don’t have to do your twenties again. I don’t know if that applies to me or you, but it’s something to think about.
Hang in there.
Aphonia
Wil,
Having never met you or anyone else who has written here, I find it so awesome, that even tho we come from different parts of the world, and are in different times of our lives, we are all so very much the same inside. Keep up the good work!
When I look back on my pre-30 years, I always feel like it was a time when I could have done so many things and just didn’t. Why didn’t I go with all of my friends on that trip to New York? Why didn’t I go to that Cure concert in 1985? Why didn’t I pose for the Playboy series, “Women of the SEC” back in college? The biggest loss I feel is the loss of time.
Hmmm… Wil, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, 30 is just a number. You’re only down because this number is giving you an opportunity to remember how far you’ve come, with both the good and the bad consequences of that.
Being the sci-fi person you are, I assume you’ve read Orson Scott Card’s Ender series. If you haven’t, read them. Especially the later novels: Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and particularly Children of the Mind. Ender’s character is interesting because he too was a child hero, precocious beyond anyone’s expectations, and by the time he was a teenager, he had done more than most people do all their lives. Above all, he had committed atrocities that he would have to live with for the rest of his life. Ender’s Game deals with that loss of innocence; the subsequent novels explore how that kind of childhood shaped his adult life.
Of course, this is just a story, but Card’s genius has always been his ability to backhandedly offer remarkable insights into the human existence. It’s made me think more deeply about life, and I’m not quite 19.
On the flip side: “Speak for yourself. I plan to live forever.”
I think you’ve explained the way many of us feel. I’m only 25, but every day I have “adult” things to deal with. Get up early, go to work, pay bills, pay taxes, deal with traffic ridden commutes, etc. Back in our childhood, we only had to worry about what we were doing after school and that weekend. Homework was another headache to deal with, but thinking back to my high school days, I would gladly trade my “adult” life for those days gone by. Every time I hear those 80’s tunes or see those old tv shows, I always feel a pang of sadness. Sad that those days are gone…
But then I turn to me boyfriend as a cheesy 80’s song comes on the radio and do our horrible lip syncing and air guitar, then one of us will catch the other off guard and soak them with a water gun or silly string.
Those days of youth may have gone, but that doesn’t mean we can’t act like a kid every now and again! It’s great stress relief. Trust me.
i just visted the college bar back in good ol’ denton, texas, this weekend…. talk about nostalgia! there was a band playing on the roof and my drinks were made right all night! made me even kinda want to return to texas, because the nights in april are just about the best weather ever (for tx, that is) but then i remembered that i’ve moved on… left that behind… and am probably better off for it.
Don’t cry Wil, that bums me out to hear about that.
Wil, I turn 40 exactly one month after your b-day (8/29). I remember turning 30 as being nostalgic and fun (one of my students gave me a gag gift of “Just for Men” grey hair remover). I believe we can be as old as we decide to be. My 70-year-old mother can run circles around me and maintains a childlike (not childish) and inquisitive interest in the world around her. People *always* think she is younger than she actually is. When I was in Ireland a few weeks ago, I met a 93-year-old lady who whose mind was clear as a bell and I had more fun at her house for 2 hours than anywhere else on the island.
You said it yourself in one of your blogs the other day: Stay Gold. If you stay gold, the chronological age won’t matter.
Peace
Ahud
Wil,
I’ll be 49 in two weeks. Don’t think THAT hasn’t pushed a few buttons for me. I can’t believe it myself because in some ways I still feel 18.
But, there’s a secret. We old kids can tell you young kids about it until we’re blue in the face — but you won’t believe it anymore than I did when I was turning 30.
And the secret is: when you get older, you get more comfortable in your skin. It’s not the same as having “that edge” that we all savor when we’re in our teens and twenties. It’s different. And it’s indescribably delicious. Sure it comes with a sharp whiff of nostalgia, but that’s part of the package.
Savor what you’re experiencing — you’ll do it again and again as you grow older. And that “edge” is a movable bar on the scale of life.
You’ll be amazed where it will take you.
Wil, (and all you commenters!) I couldn’t have said it any better, and I don’t think I can honestly add anything that the rest of you haven’t already said. I’m just going to sit here, listen to the 80’s station on the radio, and smile wistfully because now I know I’m not alone.
Wil, man, it must be the planetary alignment getting everyone into a blue funk. Me included. Nostalgic for all sorts of things….
You know who NEVER cries?
Corey Feldman.
Bitch.
Don’t show weekness to either one of the Coreys.
We’ve come so far.
Don’t throw it all away now.
You show weekness to one of the Coreys and they will fucking eat you for lunch.