Perspective: 30 Years in a Heartbeat

Interesting contrast.

A lazy afternoon recovering from my 30 year high school reunion and I ran over to the store to pick some things up for dinner. Outside the store was a crowd of high school kids hanging out.

And of course, that got me to wondering.

All the clichés are true of course. Time flies by in the blink of an eye. I knew that the kids hanging outside the store had no clue that in 30 years time they would be walking into a room filled with almost-50-year old adults, all of who bear ghosts of the faces that you once knew so well; ghosts now buried under 30 years of experience. And certainly, the almost-50-year-olds have only the vaguest memories of what is was like to hang out on a warm Sunday afternoon with our minds uncluttered by kids, and mortgages and college tuition and all the other mundane and “grown-up” realities that have filled our once-uncluttered minds.

It is the natural progression of things that we all get older. There is nothing profound in stating this obvious reality. But still, I think that in each of my classmates was a little cringe of just how vivid that reality was. It is one thing to watch our mirror gradually reflect back the receding hairline and growing paunch over incremental time. This slow progress allows us to develop our self-denials that time has much of an effect upon us.

It is when the mirror is stripped away and we suddenly find ourselves surrounded by all of these grown-ups that look like our parents looked, when they should actually look young and eager and goofy and all the things that we remembered them to be, and we wonder, can this really be true? Are these all the same kids? How did they grow so old when I haven’t changed a bit.

Ah sweet denial. I wonder how many of us were eager to go home and confront the mirror after such a night?

Still, seeing the faces of my once young contemporaries, I was encouraged that we all had arrived through our 30 years journey stronger and wiser and, in a deeper way, far more beautiful than the clichéd beauty of coveted youth. The experience etched around our eyes and drawn across our flesh is a coin of real value, for it is purchased in exchange of innocence and naive hope.

Our youthful dreams were once fueled by the innate certainty of immortality, of boundless possibility and an unwavering belief that we could accomplish anything. We had all the answers and the blind self assurance of unyielding possibility.

Now, of course, we know better that life is a formidable opponent. We know that despite our belief to the contrary, our youthful dreams must yield and adapt to the currents of our actual lives. Our dreams have evolved and become stronger by it. We have learned that the cost of making dreams real is long and hard work, pain and often regret at what has to be left behind so that we can move forward.

But, like the ghost faces of the kids that we once were, we can still recognize the shadows of the dreams that we once produced. We know that between those unrealized dreams and the realized dreams of our lives in a wavering and circuitous path that connects them, the common thread being ourselves.

We were once beings of pure and youthful beauty who have grown into the expression of our own beautiful experience.