westford, ma
some time ago, the charm of re-reading books and re-watching movies lost their effect on me. i bought books because i loved them the second time as much as the first. i purchased movies because i wanted the option of watching them again at a moment's whim.
and then something happened. my collection grew a soft layer of fuzz as i gradually lost interest. what was the point when i knew what was going to happen already? looking back on it now i realized it was time, both the lack of and the eternal length of it. i have better things to do now. and if i ever got the hankering for that particular novel or film? a copy of it shouldn't be too hard to find. sure things go out of print, but they eventually make a come back in some limited release form. i didn't have the time now, but there would always be time later. i no longer felt the need to clutter my limited space with their disposable presence.
despite my poo pooing time spent on the already experienced, i spend an inordinate amount of effort re-visiting the past. there are certain bookmarks in my life, ones i keep going back to as a reference point of how my perceptions have changed since then. these are events not stored on any digital media, and journaling somehow isn't the same either. but here goes.
lately i've been feeling different. it began last fall, so slowly that i wasn't aware until december what was happening. some part of me cast itself off. i wouldn't say that i'm truly older or more mature, but that i'm feeling the cumulative effects of the clock and the experiences that went along with the ticking.
i keep going back to that one night, long ago in a suburb of boston. i had just started working, it was my first business trip, and hey, a coworker who had started a mere 2 weeks after me had invited me out to a drink at the hotel bar!
rattos was turning 29 in 3 months. wow, 29, so old! what was it like? do you feel differently now than when you were my age? what kind of things change? anything? back in those days, everyone i knew was either a college student or "old", in their 40s-50s. there were no in betweens, so this 29 year old thing was a big deal. like wow.
he chuckled. he didn't feel any wiser, just dumber at times. and he still felt 25. in the life of the rattos, time had mentally stopped then. and yes he was familiar with the 5 year plan. he had wanted kids at 28. i helpfully pointed out that he was behind.
i don't remember what the point of that business trip was. what i do remember was providing rattos company on his smoking breaks and him cracking open my lobster because i didn't know how. i remember sliding my corporate card through the reader. the bill would return to me paid in full. i remember feeling infinitely happy then. new job, new life, new friend. there was a lot to look forward to and a whole lot to not care about.
that was nearly 7 years ago. savoring how i felt back then, i'm no longer the same person. the bounce is gone. my hours aren't spent playing video games, chatting with friends, eating out, or shopping for no reason. things aren't so carefree anymore. and yet i think back to that day, and wonder... did rattos feel the way i do now? and so much happened the 5 years that i knew him, things that eventually changed him as well as they did me. 29 years seemed like a lot to me then, and it still feels like a lot now that i've reached that milestone. and yet, there's so much more to go. am i to meet my counterpart one day? someone asking me how it feels to be so old?
i'd actually really like that.
that night was pivotal in hindsight. my life would have been very different had it not happened. not better nor worse, just different.