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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Ho-ly shit! You’re doing this when your 30?! I must’ve gotten a very early start on this stuff. I’m only 20 and I’ve been thinking like this for quite a while now. I always wanted to believe that it got better when you got older. **Are you telling me it gets worse???** I feel like I’m frittering away my time and not getting anywhere. Eveyone tells me, “My God Kris! You’re only 20, you have your whole life ahread of you!” I can only think that I’ve already blown 20 years and I’m scared of where I’m going from here. IT GETS WORSE?? If I can’t deal with it now, how the hell am I gonna’ deal with it at 30, or 50??? Well, thanks for giving me another night’s worth of insomnia inducing mental turmoil.
Haha. I think Wil’s wife’s ex-husband is the only person who could genuinley say that he hates wesley crusher.
Ok.. I’m gonna repeat what has already been said, but I need to say it.
Damn Wil.. You hit the nail on the head. I feel like that evry now and again too. My best friend, who I’ve known since 3rd grade is gonna be setteling down pretty soon too. I remember the nigts of hanging out at my friend Matt’s house, with the guys. Dialing up the BBSes and trolling. Or sitting in Matt’s back room and listening to records or just talking about stupid shit.
It’s always good to know that there is someone else that is going through the same things I go through too.
Ok.. time to fire up some 80’s MP3s…
Ack, I turn 28 in 5 days and dang if I knew what I was supposed to do with my life.
And with people now having families and mortgages, I keep thinking hey! When did we become adults?
Wil, I’m just loving my thirties. They are the best. Don’t sweat it, and don’t worry about it.
Back then in your teen years, though you are nostalgic now, you didn’t know how good you had it, did you? Well, same thing applies in your thirties, but you just know how to recognize it better and be thankful for it. Instead of being scared, be excited at what is to come and that you are older and wiser to experience it more fully.
Anne
Wow! That is EXACTLY like how I feel. I know that is almost the same comment everyone else has, too.
I am turning 30 in like 61 hours (officially, 10:17 am, 4/25) and for the past few days (maybe even weeks) I have been in the wierdest funk.
I just keep remembering all that is to remember and realizing, no matter how much I think about it, I can *never* go back and “re-live” it. It just makes me really sad. I know that “the best years are still ahead” and all of that bullshit, but it still doesn’t change exactly how I feel, here and now, getting ready to leave my twenties and enter my thirties.
And, I know it’s also not the end of the world, but, like it or not, I’m probably a little more than finished with a 1/3 of my life, which means I’ve only got another 2/3’s left…if I’m lucky. So, I know how you feel, and I share your pain, Will.
That’s so sad… I’m 16 and I’ve been going off on tangents recently about SATs and AP tests and how i should be savoring my youth while it’s here, but wow. That just sums up what I worry about. I worry that I’ll graduate college, end up sitting in some cubical and wishing I had gone out with my friends more, made more memories. Dang, they tell us to grow up and take it, but this is nuts. We’re only teenagers for so long. I will do great things, I’m sure of it, but for now dammit I am going to be a kid!
hrmf. gonna be 33 next year. Life is good anyway, i guess.
Oh, by the way…I want to apologize…I *know* it’s W-I-L, not W-I-L-L (like I typed)…sorry 🙂
Wil, I turned 49 this February and have 4 kids from this second marriage: 13, 11, 8 and 4. I gave up a career as a trial attorney to raise em and to help my OB/Gyn husband. We’ve had about 4 moves in the last six years, hoping that each one would be our last. You just have to endure, sometimes, hon. The fact that you have a great wife and stepkids should help in that fact. And, all the posts here seem to say that you are loved and supported in your journey. We all feel, sometimes, that our best years are behind us. But, you know, I really think the “old geezers” like myself who have posted have hit on it: it really does get better: different, to be sure! but better. Hang in there! Karen
You are born, you listen to a lot of music, and then you die. It’s realy not that complicated.
Let me first apologize for the length of this post! Then, allow me to apologize for the apparent jab at Sweet Uncle Sparks! 😉
I’ll be 29 this coming January. I am not married … nor do I hold much hope of ever being married … I’ve been dating the same woman since I was 21, and, in a situation typical in my life, SHE’S the one skittish about marriage. If I’d had half the chance, I would’ve married her years ago. She’s afraid of change, though, and all she says of marriage is “I want a wedding, but I don’t want to be married.” About children? I don’t expect them …I’ve looked forward to them, though. She’ll move in with me … after she’s lived on her own for a while. Well, really, after she’s moved in with a *male* friend at work, and THEN moved out on her own …. Don’t worry about him being a guy, she tells me –She doesn’t want him and he doesn’t want her. What I’m telling her is that I understand the not wanting each other part… what I’m worried about is being WELLL into my 30s before we go to the next level (assuming I’m going to be able to hold out ’til next week.)
Enough of that, though. I had an OK childhood… I was never in a major motion picture or anything >;-)
But it was very enjoyable. (Youth may be wasted on the young, but ‘Wasted youth is better by far than a wise and productive old age.’ — I’ll credit that to Meatloaf, ’cause that’s where I heard it.)
Lucas Young – You are most certainly right, Pink Floyd put it very well. I was just thinking that the Alan Parsons said it well, too, on I Robot; Day after Day.
Gaze at the sky And picture a memory
Of days in your life You knew what it meant to be happy and free
With time on your side
Remember your daddy When no one was wiser
Your ma used to say That you would go further than he ever could With time on your side
Think of a boy with the stars in his eye
Longing to reach them but frightened to try
Sadly, you’d say, someday, someday
But day after day The show must go on
And time slipped away Before you could build any castles in Spain The chance had gone by
With nothing to say And no one to say it to
Nothing has changed
You’ve still got it all to do Surely you know
The chance has gone by
Think of a boy with the stars in his eye
Longing to reach them but frightened to try
Sadly, you’d say, someday, someday
But, day after day The show must go on
And you gaze at the sky And picture a memory of days in your life With time on your side
With time on your side
(Day after day the show must go on)
With time on your side
(Day after day the show must go on)
Wil, music absolutely drags up old emotions and memories. The only way I can keep track of what happened when in high school and college is by the songs I was listening to then.
Thirty’s not so bad. It’s only a number.
I’ve never seen Pink Floyd quoted so much before. You know what my sister’s theme song is? We all have theme songs – mine is WonderWoman – and don’t you FORGET it! Anyways – her is No Regrets, by the great Edith Piaf. You remember that song, you play it. You go to babelfish and translate them wordies. “No, I do not regret anything.” The rest is kinda garbled but the important message is there.
Thanks Wil,
It’s cool that someone like you can relate on this level. I remember a buddy of mine who had batman logos on the sides of his car back in the early nineties when that movie came out… and one or both of us catching a STTNG episode and calling each other about it to say how cool it was. A lot has changed since then and I don’t see those guys as much anymore but thanks for bringing that back.
Wil very good topic, man,I turn 30 july 6 this year and I’ve been freaking out for the past year. It was like when I was 25 you know your saying I’m in my mid-20’s, 28 still close to mid-20’s but 29 that’s it!! 30 is coming quickly and you start looking around and thinking what have I done. you start seeing The Real World 10 and it’s like oh fuck!!
Hey I highly recommend going to the Inner Child thread in Everything else. I feel better everytime I go there. I am 26 and my hubby is 28. Yep aging plays weird and sad tricks on a person’s brain sometimes.
Turning 30? Whatever… after 30 it’s all the same, it isn’t some magic barrier or anything. Self examination is ok, but don’t kill yourself with it, you’ve been to Topeka for gawds’ sake, you know how bad it can get.
I to miss the late 80’s and early 90’s. Granted I’ll only be turning 18 in four months but reading what you said makes me think about the past, AGAIN! lol
I miss being five years old and watching TNG when you guys used to wear those Star Fleet uniforms that always reminded me of the French military, lol.
I still look back and wonder “Where has the time gone?”. I am going on my last year of High School, which means I only have 1 and a half years until I join the Marines. I know everything will completely change then. TNG, DS9, and even Voyager ar gone now, nothing but a memory. I’ll always remember those days though when I would sit two feet from the T.V and watch your character progress(aswell as many others)and watch the Enterprise go from one mystery to the next. “Enterprise” is good and all but TNG will ALWAYS be my favorite. I wish I could go back in time to when I was five and do and watch everything I did once again while it was brand ne and not a repeat. Sorry about going on like that, heh. I hope everything turns out great for you, even when you turn 40 dude. =)
Just be glad you aren’t a woman! It all goes south about the time you turn 30! If you didn’t before, you suddenly discover gray is a color that you will have to live with in some way or another, either in your hair that everyone can see or in the hair that only YOU see! It sucks! At least men get to grow old gracefully! And be glad that you have such a great metabolism! And that you don’t have to bear children. Those two things together take their toll on your body. Men still have it up on women with the effects of aging. But the number 30 is cause for self reflection. You do start to look back and notice how much things have changed. If your parents are still around, you kind of notice that they are getting older too. That sucks major! But there are things to be grateful for…..you’re alive and not a boozer or heroin addict!………….It was great seeing your young little face in the Sacramento Bee. Makes me wonder where all those years went!
taz
Danny Elfman/Oingo Boingo totally rocks. You rule a thousandfold for liking such great 80s music. (Of course, you ruled before that, but still.)
Wow reading this makes me glad that we don’t have time travel. Imagine how many people would go back and try to relive the 80’s. You would probably go and tell the younger you to really enjoy what you had, but do you really think you would listen? No. I am not quite 20 yet and am trying to enjoy what I have. I have read all this before and it is making me wonder “Am I going to be this way when I’m 30, 40?” The answer is “Probably”. Oh well, until then I’m going to try and enjoy what you all wish you still had, ha ha ha (Just kidding).
30 years old and talking about wasted youth.. I like to think of myself as very young, but I see it’s just an illusion ;o]
Cripes, so -thats- what that overwhelming sense of creeping doom is that’s been keeping me up o’nights. I was wunnerin’ about that.
I’m not sure if it’s the turning 30 (in just a little over 4 months, on the aniversary of -that- day no less, I’ll never forget my birthday) as much as it is my recent realization that the last 10-15 years just flew by. I mean dang, one minute I was sitting up into the wee hours doing a Freudian deconstruction of the Rodger Corman classic “Battle Beyond the Stars” as a goof, eating nuclear nachos, and playing in a White Wolf LARP and then the next I’m pondering having grape nuts for breakfast to put more fiber in my diet and coming to the realization that I really need to get a diversified portfolio set up. How the hell did this happen?
And if the last 10-15 went by so quick then by what scary-ass factor will the next decade increase in speed?
Just pondering it makes my brain stem want to leap up and throttle my cerebrum.
*sigh*
I miss Max Headroom (the show not the Coke ads).
I miss bizzare 80’s music.
I miss Bloom County and Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes.
I miss MST3K.
I miss the way Miami Vice, amidst all that flash and glam and nonsense would every now and then do a really unsettling story, like the one with the guy in the wall and the cop who went crazy and put him there.
I miss 120 Minutes on MTV and Unplugged too.
I miss Star Blazers and G-Force and Robotech (though not, -never-, Minmei).
Damn I watched alot of tv didn’t I?
I miss jean jackets with little pins on them.
I miss that incredible kick I got the first time I read Watchmen and then again when I first read Dark Knight Returns.
I miss squirt gun battles in towel section of Penny’s
I miss watching TNG reruns with my pals every night and MST3King it. (never the new eps on Saturday though, that would be sacralidge)
I miss freaking the mundanes.
I miss D&D, GURPS, Diplomacy, Amber White Wolf and Castle Falkenstien LARPS and the endless consumption of caffine and sugar that went along with them.
For reasons passing understanding, I kinda miss Swatches. I do not, however, miss acid washed jeans, poofy bangs, or the dreaded pastel period of the mid-80’s
Banana clips are right out too. As are shoulder pads.
I miss memorizing Monty Python’s The Holy Grail.
I miss Vax’ing in HS and in college.
I miss hanging out for no reason at all just, ’cause.
I miss words like Rad and Bitch’n
I miss the thrill of learning new stuff in school.
I miss snow days and the first day of summer vacation.
I miss the certainty that I would never get old
And now I wonder what I’ll be missing 10 years from now, which, relativisticly speaking, should roll around in just about the time it takes me to hit the post button.
Dang Unka Willy. I dont know whether to thank you for this trip down memory lane or send you my therapy bill.
Regardless, well written it was and I’m much appreciative of you crystalizing the feelings of so many of is us out there.
Or, as Paul Simon put it:
I am older than I once was
and younger than I’ll be
that’s not unusual
No, it isn’t strange
after changes upon changes we are more or less the same
Hoo. I may not have a mortgage, and I may only be 25, but I do, in a way, understand.
When I was 12, I loved the–cringe–New Kids on the Block, I wanted to be a cheerleader, and I thought my parents would be married forever.
I never imagined I would be up to my ears in credit card debt, stranded in self-imposed exile in the great frozen Midwest, having a conversation with my long-estranged father via AIM about why I thought it was sensible of me to be unmarried and childless at 25.
All of this hit me the other day along with the realization that I am in a long-term relationship with someone who will be 30 next year. I remember my PARENTS turning 30, it seems bizarre to be dating someone who will be 30 soon when I can still quite clearly recall their entry into their thirties.
I thought of ALL of this and came to this conclusion: hoo, boy, I am getting old and I haven’t done a blasted thing.
Since I turned 25 a few months ago I have been laboring under the delusion that my life is almost over and I have really messed it up. I thought I wanted to go back to my youth and start over; everything seemed so hopeful then and I am so jaded and bitter now.
But thinking of all those things the other day, and then thinking, “wow, I’m old and I have wasted it all,” well, suddenly I realized 25 and 30 years old…we’re still kids ourselves, man. You may have a mortgage and pre-teens, and I may be careerless and unmarried but in the grand scheme of things, we are nowhere near old, and quite possibly we may not even REALLY be adults yet, at least I don’t feel like one.
30 is a number and in the grand scheme of things a small one. Come on, Wil, you still play video games! You play dodgeball! Your youth isn’t wasted any more than mine is because we’re still IN our youths.
It will all be okay once you wrap your head around it. 25 and 30 aren’t the ages they were when our parents turned them; the possibilities are stretching ahead of us. Let’s relax and enjoy it, mortgages, credit card debts and all.
Around about now any 30-ish Boingo fans in need of a weepy nostalgic fix should listen to “Stay”, the album version, really loud, preferably off vinyl.
I turned 30 recently. It’s not so much a sense of loss or age that hits you, but the sense of disorientation. See, the fact is you reach a point in your adult life, usually the first time around now, where you realise that somewhere deep down there’s a part of you that hasn’t noticed the passing of time. That the first time you heard Weird Al do Hey Joe polka-style wasn’t yesterday, it was a lifetime ago.
But it *was* yesterday, wasn’t it?
I have been your fan now for 16 years and the fact that you have your own site and you maintain it, pretty much kicks ass.
I will be 27 this year and like you; mortgage to pay and responsibilities to take care of (being single does not mean less responsibility!!), but even though I miss my youth (I sound like my gran!) I am happy to be older, achieving my goals, and realising my dreams. Look at where you are and what you have achieved, for it is just the beginning!
“People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
– Albert Einstein
The Byrds said: “Aw, but I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now.”
Wow, Wil. I am totally on the same wavelength that you’re on. I turn 30 in 15 days, and I’m dreading it. Luckily, I, too, only look at most about 20- I still sometimes get mistaken for a 16-year-old, especially if I’m not wearing makeup. That makes me feel good, but then I’ll see a new gray hair (which really stands out when you’re a brunette) and feel old again. It doesn’t help that I’m older than my husband, either… I sometimes wonder when life is going to start, too. I’m in a band called the Wag, and we’re doing all right, but it’s not like we have a recording contract or anything. I don’t want to sign my first deal when I’m 35- I want it NOW!!! We have a song that our guitarist wrote, and it’s called “Short Days.” I believe you can listen to it on our website (and if not, buy the CD!). To me, the title says it all. It’s about growing older. Time is a lot shorter than you think, so grab life by the you-know-whats and live!!! I get very nostalgic sometimes. I think especially about my family, and about how I wish I had done things differently- maybe I could have been a little nicer to them (of course I was only being a normal teenager, but looking back…); I wish I hadn’t ended up with the guys I went with back then… I wish maybe I hadn’t gone out so much (believe me, I was no party animal, but still) because now that I don’t have my family in close proximity to me, I miss them a whole lot. It was always me and my sister and my dad, my mom having left when I was 9, and when I think about them, I get very sad. I live in central Jersey, and I’m going to see my sis (who lives in NY) this weekend, and sometime next month I’ll see my dad (who lives in South Jersey). I’m not sure when I’ll see Mom again- she also lives in South Jersey, but I don’t see her as much. Anyway, when I go to see my dad, it’s partially to get my piano from him (my house is finishing up being worked on, and now I’ll have room for it). It’s always a very painful thing for me to go back to that house, because I still have my room there, although most of the stuff is gone from it now. My dad lives there alone, and I get very sad thinking about it. Whoa, it seems I’m veering a bit off topic here. Anyway, Wil, to me, turning 30 makes me think about all those things- not just about how carefree life was back then, although we didn’t know it at the time; not just about the TV shows, and the friends, and all the little things in my room; not just about how much life I had ahead of me; mostly turning 30 makes me think about my family, and how much I miss them, and how I wish I could turn back the clock so I could spend more time with them. Great, now I have to start work today all teary-eyed! Thanks a lot, Wil. But really, thank you for putting into words what a lot of us are feeling. I’m sorry this post was so long- you made me wax nostalgic. Keep up the great work, Wil.
Love, Alicia
http://www.thewagband.com
There is a country song out now..(Yeah..moans)
thats called “Goodbye twenties hello minivan!”
Really…nuff said.
You guys MISS all that 80s crud?
You don’t have to.
You got the Internet.
That’s where 80s crud goes when everyone else is finished with it.
All crud.
All 80s.
All the time.
So give your nostalgia a miss, yeah?
I was asked about turning 30, after it happened in 2000. Sure I was a little freaked when it happened, but I’m much happier now at 31 than I was at 29. At 30, you finally begin to forgive yourself for all the foolish things you did in your teens and 20s. Sure the nostalgiac sadness creeps up on you, but it’s countered by the fact that you can give yourself a lot more credit for the things you are good at. At 30 you begin to realize a few limitations and can allow yourself to be bad at a few things. Allowing yourself to suck at a selected few things is a huge load off. Me? I picked being bad at packing weirdly shaped objects (like action figures) into boxes. I accepted that I never was nor will be a tetris-god. Other hand, I realized I’m very good at my job and I quit being my own worst critic. Another key at 30: remember what Robert Heinlein wrote, “The key to happiness? Get enough sleep.”
Welcome to our club. You’ll like it here.
You need Ultraman! I have the first 4 episodes and the last 4 episodes on VHS. Nothing will put your passing youth in perspective like some hardcore, chinese made, campy as all hell, episodes of the ORIGINAL Ultraman.
Let me know if you’d like a copy and I’ll get one off to you. I’ve been 31 for almost a year now, and with that last Blog of yours, you poured my heart out. UGH! :O)
I do the laying awake thing all the time. I used to get in moods like that all the time. Eat some chocolate. You’re stressed. You need to get some rest and relax a little. I used to laugh at alot of things that make me cry now. Its probably a chemical imbalance. Go to the store and find Godiva Belgian Dark Chocolate ice cream. It’ll help. 🙂
I love the soundtrack to the original Batman movie! The soundtrack to the animated movie Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is good too. 🙂
Heh, I’ll be 26 in a few months. My sister just turned 28. It’s kind of weird how society creates these subliminal phobias about certain ages. Especially decade markers. I was supposed to be bummed about being 25 but I don’t really feel any different than I did when I was 20. I just have more aches and pains. Try not to listen to stuff that depresses you. Feeling sad makes your body create chemicals that make you feel more depressed. Try to think of happy things. Be glad that you are still alive and that you are relatively safe. Look at the good things in your life and focus on them. I have friends in Israel that still manage to have a positive outlook on life. Be happy that you still have your best friend from age 13. I have moved so much that I haven’t kept in contact with anyone I knew before I was 20. And even the ones that I met after I still here from only in email. As for your wife’s ex-husband, kick him from behind when nobody is looking. ;-D
Anyways, I played EQ all night and need to nap. heh. I totally get the wasted youth thing. If only I had done many things differently when i was younger. Maybe my health wouldn’t be so bad now. I mean, I never did drugs or got drunk. But I had opportunities to go places, see things, and learn things that I didn’t take advantage of. Now I look back and think about the stuff I wish I had done. But y’know, that’s life. If I’m meant to do those things, I’ll do them in my next life if not later in this one.
“Always look on the bright side of life”.
luv,
-Su
Will, looking back on our “halcyon days” is one of our most guilty pleasures. But it aint true. It was never “better”, you just forgot the bad stuff…like the widow who’s dead husband is only remembered as a kind man. It’s called the Halo Effect. We forget our bad times and see the good times through a haze clouded by dreams.
Everyone ages. EVERYONE. It’s a critical part of life and without it we couldn’t exist….in fact, you could say that the march of time (and the March of Dimes I imagine) is what allows us to enjoy life.
I think the reason we dread getting older is because we havent lived up to some incorrect assumption of who we THOUGHT we should be. Hell, your career was pretty much my goal years ago. Do I bemoan the fact that I have not been on Star Trek yet? even as a Red Shirt? No! I’ve done great things in my 30 years. I dont regret one.
I died two years ago and was given another chance by whatever forces in this universe you believe in. I dont rush around hurrying to do more or worrying about wasting time. At 30, I’m better at living than I ever was. Now, I relax, enjoy growing old, have fun being who I thought I’d never be.
And never letting the child inside die.
30 is no biggy Wil. You wont feel different. And it will only hurt when the cute girls at the mall call you “sir”. That always smarts.
Today I am 37 (happy birthday to me!). Of course it varies with environment and situation, but the 30’s have been the best years of my life. I do like to reminisce about childhood–most of it, some parts I was glad to escape. There’s nothing wrong with a little melancholy now and then, but chin up, Wil, you’ve got worlds of good times and memories ahead of you.
don’t you see now how important stand by me was?!?!
Awww, that made me cry.
uncle willie, you can still kick it with the young dudes. hehe. i’m barely 18 and i’m coming to realise that i can still get up early and watch cartoons if i want, or have bowl after bowl of ice cream in pizza hut, but i can also go out and get trashed (ah, the beauties of living in england) and dance all night too. getting older affords us the freedom to fulfill dreams long forgotten. this is making me want to go outside and roll down the hill with bunches in my hair, so i think i will.
spread the love, all over your bad self 😉
sherlock
I just turned 39…I was having the usual “tremors” but then someone said “it could be worse” and suddenly it was. My husband of 15 yrs (turned 40 in October) left me for a 30 year old women he works with. Enjoy what you have Wil.
A beautiful wife, great kids and the usual problems. And appreciate just have fragile it all is. Even with this major set back I still look forward to 40. I have a caree, a beautiful son, a home, and good friends. The things that matter are still with me…
Wil,
Welcome to the big 30! I had the same problem as you when I was getting ready to turn 30. But it was somewhat different.
When I was younger, I pictured myself in the place you are now (married, living in a house with 2.3 kids, a pet of somekind, etc.), but instead I was single, living in an apartment, barely making ends meet, and going to college. Yeah, college at age 30. It was nothing like what I thought my life would be. It was very depressing and the more I thought about turning 30 and where my life WAS NOT, the more depressed I became about it.
There is something about being 20-something and thinking that you are going to be 30-something. It seems like your youthfulness disappears at that point, but guess what … it doesn’t. After I turned 30, I still felt like I did before I became a 30-something person. Nothing changed. It is a fear about a time that you think there is going to be a big change in your life, but it really doesn’t exist. A misplaced fear.
Also, when I moved back to Indiana from Texas, the first place I went was to my parents house. I was there for 4 days and remembered a lot of things from my childhood. I was even living in the same room that I grew up in and I had a very strong feeling that this was no longer my home. I felt more like a visitor in a place that used to be mine. After 4 days, I moved in with a friend instead. I couldn’t stand that feeling for long.
It is amazing that as we go through life we call many places home, but those places that used to be home, that used to be our comfort zones, are no longer that. They are places that hold ghosts of the past, and do not hold that confort zone any longer.
Hang in there Wil. You’ll understand shortly. 30 will come and go and you will look back a couple of months after that and say to yourself, “Boy, that was pretty stupid for me to worry about that damn birthday.” I know I sure did.
Patrick
Wow Wil, you should collect these comments and put out a book called “Blogging for the 30’s Soul” or something. Seriously your post seems to have touched a lot of us (even those in other age groups) and prompted us to share some of our own stories. In my opinion things like this are part of the WWDN magic. Thanks for posting and thanks everyone else for opening up and sharing a piece of yourselves with the rest of us.
I know what you mean completely. Only, the weird thing is, is that I feel that way when and I am so much (okay, not SO much) younger. I remember my glory days of the late 80s and early 90s when all I had to care about was saturday morning cartoons and New Kids on the Block (Oh, shut up! I was 8 in ’89! That’s reasonable, isn’t it? It wasn’t until later that I developed a wider taste of eighties music. Depeche Mode and REM forever!). I’m only 20 and even *I* feel that youth has passed me by, so don’t feel bad, Wil… I don’t think youth has left you behind. You just have a different kind of youth — one that revolves around PhotoShop pictures of you and being the coolest Star Trek geek ever! ;o)
The problem isn’t the “hyper-nostalgia” for a few minutes– it’s getting caught up in it for a long time. Like, I have a scrapbook that I made of my high school theatre days. It’s been some three years since I was in high school, but I often look at it and feel the same intense loss and sadness deep in my heart… and I have to stop. None of us can get caught up in our glory days gone by…. because you have so many glory days ahead. :o)
See, who the hell needs counseling when you have a website and fans like us to empathize and relate? You owe us money. Pay up, geek boy. ;o)
peace, love, and big 80s hair!
~ angie k
Someone who I admire said something to this effect:
“I will be always grateful to my grandparents who taught me that no matter how the days gone by were, the good ‘ol days are still yet to come.”
When I was a child I spoke as a child
I wish I could remember what I said…
And ANOTHER thing – you put in that MST3K episode “Space Mutiny” on, you watch that fucker and you tell me again that you miss the 80s dude. Come oooon! 😛 Anyone that tells me that they miss the 80s after that freakin’ monstrosity needs to sit their ass down and tell me when their extra-cool X-Box was invented, and what they were forced to do for kicks before all the really cool 3-D game engines were thought up.
Say it with me now people:
PONG.
Bip – biddee -beep pong. It wasn’t till the last half of the freakin’ 80s that they even MANAGED to put Wolfenstein together. Shooting germans man – you can’t beat shooting germans. The really cool thing is, you wanna relive that shit all you have to do is warm up your old emulator and bip – biddee – beep pong – it’s happening again. Yay. And the BEST freakin’ thing about the 80s is that it ended man! No more big hair, no more bad make-up, no more horrid cotton prints and NO MORE STILLETO HEELS! The day platform shoes came into fashion was the day God said, “Nacey dude, I’m giving you a break.” My toes still hurt from the odd time I wore those pointy icky shoe things from the 80s. Not that you wear heels, right Wil? Yeaaah you bet.
There is always worse. I will be 40. I never had a wife or kids, but my brothers’ kids are having kids. Will they known Uncle Tony? Still, I feel peaceful because, no matter what, I have given myself a sense that my purpose in life has been fulfilled. In other words, it’s all in your mind. Life is what you make it with what you got and you got more than most.
Wow. The great thing is that everyone feels the same way- no matter what they say. You knwo that everyone has gone through that stage where they are so unsure of where they are going and just want to retreat to where they’ve been. You are in good company.
I’m loving all this “When I was 31, it was a very good year…” stuff. Oy. Nostalgia sucks.
I can’t stand to look back for more than a couple of minutes and have NEVER understood those who… say… STILL listen to U2. I loved U2… about twenty fucking years ago. But I’ve moved on.
Being over 30 ain’t sad. Looking over your shoulder back at your “glory days” is sad.
Check this out…
This is what arch-fucker George Lucas has to say about you 30-something loser Internet geeks (and me).
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020429/story.html
>> Lucas blames the anti-Jar Jar sentiment on “37-year-old guys who spend all their time on the Internet.”
Now.
Fuck Lucas before Phantom Menace, but now he’s slamming guys like me who just happen to be 35 and just happen to spend all their time on the Internet (although to be fair, I get paid for it).
But you wanna talk about losing your edge… Rick Berman and George Lucas. They have amassed a gargantuan warchest and surrounded themselves with a phalanx of yes-men, but those fuckers have been churning out shit for many, many years.
You wanna know what’s cool about being over 30?
Yard work.
Okay, I did mention earlier that pulling dandelions sucks. And it does. Also mowing sucks a lot. Hate that shit. But planting strawberry plants and like churning up dirt with a big rototiller is cool.
I would go so far as to say it is…
THE Coolest.
In fact, I wish I could get paid to just dig in my backyard all day. Fuck this cubicle shit. Yeah, it pays for the backyard, but I really, really want to get paid to just plant shit.
All day.
But I want to get paid well.
And I want a safe to drop on George Lucas’ pompadour. Fuck that guy. And fuck his clones. And fuck Berman too.
And while we’re at it… fuck Bono.
And fuck my dandelions.
TWO tines.
But getting back to Lucas…
Bitch.
How the fuck can he offload his failure onto the heads of the kind of guys who watched Star Wars at age 12 back in ’76 (or whenever)? Are fat Internet geeks responsible for Howard the Duck and Willow?
Now, I have never owned a Star Wars action figure in my life or indeed any action figure. In fact, I honestly can say I have never purchased a single item which in any way relates to Star Wars. Don’t have the movies taped, didn’t buy the DVD (in fact, my entire sci-fi geek trove consists of one Star Trek II DVD and a Mr. Worf lunchbox which my brother gave me as a gag. That’s it). But if I were one of those guys who DOES have the whole action figure spread, bought the comics, DVD, so forth, I’d be pissed.
This is like Bonzi Wells and Rasheed Wallace here in Portland. Earlier in the year when the Blazers were not even close to making the playoffs, Wells shot off his mouth about how the players more or less deigned to acknowledge the fans out of the generosity of their heart and that there was a clear distinction between US (all caps) and them (lower case).
Well, those fuckers are about one week away from yet another premature playoff exit and who the fuck are the sorry, sad fuckers who pay to see these guys lose and then shit in their open mouths?
This is why athletes and celebrities should be fed into woodchippers.
Oh.
And fuck Cuba Gooding Jr. too.
And Robin Williams.
And fuck my dandelions.
TWO tines.
Again.
Shit, this place is getting all stuffy.
Need some air.
Oh.
And you don’t like my rambling post or it’s tone?
Well, eat it up with a spoon, bitch.
That’s all.
Thanks Wil,
Now I have the heavy head of ages lost to contend with.
At 36, with my old hometown of Los Angeles (San Pedro) 17 years and 3000 miles gone, I can now look back and think “Damn! If I’d only known then what I know now.”