Crocodile Dreams
There I was, sat in my local with a pint of some ill-considered-ale-look-alike sweating gently across the table, when it struck me quite how much my expectations had changed over the past few years. Now, I appreciate that we all start out expecting to be astronauts and cowboys, and must all eventually resign ourselves to the well-documented fact that our childhood dreams are not designed to be realized so much as to be looked back on with a sort of embarrassed nostalgia - like watching a beloved pet relieve themselves on a stranger's shoe. We weren't necessarily stupid; we just didn't realize the resounding implications of so much urine on freshly waxed leather. In short, we were childish. I regularly wax lyrical about the affectations of dreams and how one should seize those moments before they are lost.
Those of you who know me will be bracing yourselves mentally for yet another tirade at a rather tired topic... be relieved (not on a stranger's shoe) for this is not that argument. It' a different one, something a little more introspective that appears on these humble pixels largely because I am always aware of how poor and pathetic a blogster I am, and I do strive to keep you bemused (at least).
It was always plainly obvious to me that I would never remember birthdays, for example: I don't much care when people were born and the occasion plainly exists for the exquisite pleasure of watching somebody unwrap their 5th toaster that very day. It was always plainly obvious, but seems to have been clearly wrong, since I now diligently scrawl my acquaintances' names across my agenda (yet another thing that I would have sworn might never occur). I don't think that I have necessarily matured; so much as that maturing appears to involve a myriad of little relaxations of oneself. I suppose, in many ways, so does getting old, in a somewhat more literal sense. In short, I am not necessarily stunned by my changing aspirations, so much as my changing expectations of myself and my duties to the Universal.
I'm fairly certain that I haven't grown much lazier (although I have grown lazier) nor that I have ceased to expect of myself, simply that I expect different things. I find it increasingly difficult to simply walk away, which is ironic considering I only recently learned how to let things be. I do suspect that we all know roughly what I'm awkwardly alluding to... although I suppose we might make less of a song and dance about it.