Adele's song, When We Were Young, is the saddest of the songs I think of when thinking about being young, but it, too, takes me back to my 20s. Those days when we were weary, when love wasn't working, when nothing seemed to be going right. When looking back seemed to be better than looking forward.
But then, of course, time didn't stand still; it evolved. Love was found, sunny days came and a life was made, and it was good.
Thirty years later, a friend was turning some number of old and decided that, once again, reminding me of the song, it was all in the past, seeing and seeming that everything was being viewed across a room or across the years, and what was best had already been. Now we were just old.
I wasn't buying it. I argued the case that we still had time, lots of life in front of us. And if we didn't, we had what we had and we could enjoy it. I could walk the trail, listen to music and remember being restless and reckless, all while trying to capture those long ago moments because someday they'd be my memories, but for now with those times, I could also add new ones. We might have felt old in our 20's but we were babes in the woods compared to today.
And guess what? As I tell my women friends all the time, damn we're doing good. Any 90 year old would see us and think, "Wouldn't I like to be them!"
Across the Years
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