The wisdom to know the difference

A friend of mine and I were talking today about how we’ve lived – or not lived – up to the expectations we had of ourselves when we were kids. “Man,” he said, “I’m glad me-when-I-was-six doesn’t have to meet me-at-twenty-four. He’d be so disappointed.”

Somehow I don’t think that D-when-he-was-six had any idea what he’d be up against growing up. I know for myself, I thought I’d be prettier, wiser, and maybe more on top of things. I also thought I would be happier. When I was six, adults were always smiling. I had no idea that so many of them were smiling to keep from crying. I just thought that something about being grown up – about really knowing what was going on, and being free to explore and be “in” on all the secrets – was responsible for keeping the adults I knew perpetually happy. In other words, I really bought into the act.

As far as I can tell, I’ve had every opportunity to become the person I hoped I would be. I’ve been reckless with some of those opportunities, and it hardly seems fair. So many people could have done so much more with those chances than I did, but I can accept that I’ve made a lot of bad choices, been unkind to people who were kind to me, and thrown away opportunities at many a turn. Though I can’t change it, the sum total of those bad choices and – let’s face it, a bit of bad luck along with the good - is responsible for who I did turn out to be, and I like her okay. She can be hard to take sometimes, but that is something I can change.

Man, when I’m 45, I’m going to be awesome.