Published Wednesday, January 13, 2010 9:46 AM
Updated Wednesday, January 13, 2010 9:48 AM
Periodically, I run across that box, maybe during a spring-cleaning, maybe while in search of some completely unrelated item. Each time I find it, I blow off the dust, lift the lid and take a stroll down the years.
This time I found it sitting next to a still unopened box of books in our garage.
In that small stack of debris, I find many funny moments, random thoughts, even a few mysteries. My plan, as always, is to make two piles, keepers and shredders. And as always, it’s not long before I notice I only have one pile -- the one that I swear this time is destined for the shredder.
There I am, apparently a somewhat troubled 17-year-old in the middle of the school year in 1981, engaged in an erstwhile fight with the establishment, whatever that was at the time. I assume it was parents, school, life, everything. That would make sense because back then I knew everything.
There are a few pictures from a couple of high school dances. A couple of moments with girls who have probably thought even less often of me over the years than I ever did about them. There’s a few boisterous group shots of a lot of testosterone-addled guys mugging for the camera.
And always, there’s me, this dark, skinny, smart-mouthed kid. He’s fairly happy, fairly confident of some future, yet somehow he’s not quite able to find his footing. Not yet. And I wonder, occasionally, if that’s something we all feel and ultimately grow out of or if that snapshot is but a microcosm of this life I have led.
Later come letters from college. More advice. A couple of attempts at staying in touch over the summer, and at least three references to inside jokes I cannot remember for the life of me.
“Everyone laughed about the Bloody Mary mix,” writes one fraternity brother, most likely referring to some gross joke I apparently was known for at the time. I have no idea what that means, but I’m not too far from doing Googling the guy and asking him.
Later, there’s a major romance and corresponding heartbreak, and not too long after that, the usual angst and uncertainty looming over impending graduation, which in my view at the time is a fate akin to death itself, as it is inexorable, inevitable, and touted by many as a gateway to a new and better life.
Then in the midst of all this, there’s the shattering experience of losing a parent at a fragile time of life. I read through some of the cards and letters, clumsy attempts at words of comfort but true-hearted nonetheless, and I realize that these, too, were people I haven’t thought of or spoken to in years, and yet I owe them my very sanity.
I occasionally hear snippets as to how some of them are doing. There’s that guy who mapped his life out like a battle campaign and will retire when he’s fifty, very wealthy, crying poor all the way to his beach house. There’s that guy who went the opposite way, yet seems to have moved comfortably into middle class life with most of his hippie liberal ideals still intact.
And here I am, not where I thought I’d be, but certainly not unhappy about it, either. I would guess all of us probably feel like this movie script hasn’t played out like we thought it would. Yet I’m really digging the movie.
Life is strange, unexpected, sometimes cruel. But it’s never boring. I’m okay with that.
I hear tell of a lot of guys who hit my age and realize life is more than halfway over, so they get hairpieces and sports cars and Harleys and teenage girlfriends and take up bungee jumping. I had my mid-life crisis when I was 31, which may have been the only thing I’ve ever been early for in my entire life. It was great fun, but I soon found out style can only initially take one farther than substance but it can’t keep pace. Substance is slower but it lasts far longer and it’s worth far more. And the good news is substance redefines the race.
As always, I consider those two piles, the one to keep and the one to toss, and find they are still one pile. So I throw away the old rubber band that held them together, find a new one, and put those years back in their box.
Some other time, maybe.
For better or for worse, that’s a good portion of my life in that box. I’m not sure I want it to disappear until someone puts me in a box.
The day I find life boring will be the day I check out of the game. Right now, though, I can’t wait to see what happens next.