“I was thinking about how, as we age, we think about things differently - not always for the better.”
I’m 78 and I’m shaking my fist at the sky at “the kids these days” and I
am shaking my head at their misplaced priorities
I tell them to use the type of respect that I learned,
unaware that to them,
respect looks different.
I’m 8 and I have dreams of becoming a pirate, and an astronaut,
a superhero, and a superstar
I tell everyone about it.
The day I change my mind and say something practical is the day everyone
else knows
I have grown up.
I’m 50, and I am breaking down
I can jokingly say that I have a reason; it’s my mid-life crisis, right?
Except, its taken me fifty years to realize that living for the weekend is not
really living at all.
Acknowledging the tired lines in every one of my colleagues’ faces,
I wonder why any of us thought that we deserved to shackle ourselves?
I’m 13, and I’m starting to realize that the world is much more intricate
than I thought
Someone asked me what I wanted to study in college for the first time
I don’t know, I say
That’s okay, they respond. You’ve still got years to figure it out.
It is the first time I am able to recognize what appeasement looks like.
I’m 35, and I cannot remember what it’s like to be angry
to feel anything beyond myself, really
My life is a pattern of coffee shops and office cubicles and coffee shops and
office cubicles.
I come home every night.
I’m 16 and I am young and angry.
The world inherently hates me and so, I hate it back.
I do not know what age you have to hit for teenagers to turn from
“creative and passionate” to “apathetic and lazy”
But, I hope I never hit it.
I’m 89, and I am laying on my deathbed.
I know that I may not have made a large impact on the world and history as a whole,
and I am content in that knowledge.
Not everyone can be a hero;
sometimes, being a friend is enough.
