If I could turn back tiiiiiiime…

Today was busy just like any other day on the “weekend”.  After a day filled with a trip to our local urgent care, getting a prescription for bronchitis, and meeting friends with children (12 of us including kids of all ages) at a park we stopped on the way home for a nice Italian ice.  We live near our local college and two of us out of the group happen to have graduated from said university.  There were various college students in all manner of dress and uh bathing suits near us in line.  My subconscious might have been shouting at them to put more clothes on and wear sunscreen.  It was at that exact moment when my friend turned to me and said wistfully “Oh to be carefree again.  I remember those days.  I would love to be like that again.” Ha ha ha…my subconscious was laughing.

First of all, let’s take a closer look at this shall we?  I’m pretty sure I didn’t give a damn about anything back then.  Oh sure, I got great grades.  Surprisingly good all things considered, but I was slowly killing myself without realizing it.  If you are new to my blog, you would have to dig deep and go back to some of my first posts ever to catch up.  In short, I was doing what everyone else does in college…drinking, having a good time, and being in the sun more than I should.  Unfortunately, these things were working against me without my knowledge.  If I could go back in time, I would tell the having a good time me that one day I would have two precious little girls and that I needed to start working out, eat better, and stop drinking.  I would tell all of my sorority sisters to wear sunscreen, not just my friend who passed away a few years ago from skin cancer.  I would tell them that friendship is precious, and I told them to stop smoking for a reason and to please step away from the tanning bed.  Orange is not really an attractive color on skin.

Despite everything I have been through to get where I am today, I don’t think I would listen to “future me” (that reminds me of a movie involving a telephone booth).  I am in a better place even though some days it feels like all we do is rush to get through work to get home and then rush through the week to get to weekend, which in turn is packed with kid events.  At this age, I can sit back, relax and be accountable for my actions.  No longer can my excuse be that I am in “college”.  People depend on me, and that means having more responsibility than I’d like on some days, but it comes with the territory.  Do I know people who are my age and still act like they are in college?  Of course.  I refer to them as having the “Peter Pan” syndrome.  It’s nice to pretend you don’t want a grown-up relationship and all the trappings that come with it, but sooner or later you are going to look back and be alone.  I’d like to think I’m going to look back and appreciate everything I went through to get me to the place I am going.  Plus I expect I’ll have a house full of grandchildren by that time and then I get to give the whole “when I was your age…” speech.

Maybe I would just say “Snap out of it” and slap someone.  That works too.

“One problem with gazing too frequently into the past is that we may turn around to find the future has run out on us.”  ~Michael Cibenko

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