Who Wants to Grow Up?
I do. Sure, I’ve got kids and I see all the stuff they get away with. I read all the memes and jokes about how kids don’t realize how good they’ve got it until they don’t have it anymore. But you know what, I don’t buy it for one second.
When I was a kid I hated being a kid. I wanted to be old enough to do what I wanted. To be responsible for myself, for better or worse. Sure, I had no idea what that meant but I wanted to find out. I hated being told what to do simply because I wasn’t old enough. It was crap.
These days when my 7 year old tells me she can’t wait until she’s 18 and can drive (or older), I smile and agree with her. Yes, I wish she was that old too. Not because I’m anxious to get her out on her own (well, maybe sometimes…), but because I know how much I couldn’t stand life as a minor.
Even worse is that I’ve agreed to go to my twenty year high school class reunion. It’s in a few days, in fact, and people are ramping up on Facebook with all sorts of pictures and memories. And I grimace every time. Crazy hair and goofy looking kids. I doubt I made any lists of people most likely to do anything useful with their lives but I probably should have. To be fair, I doubt many had goals similar to mine, but I can count on one hand the number of people in my class who have accomplished as much as I have. And for those with different goals the only thing we’ll have in common is a place and time where we were in the same place.
I’m not bragging and I’m not saying I went to school with a bunch of deadbeats. Far from it. I’ve just always had goals that were different from most people. Back then I had no idea how to go about it, but I still had a vision and the faith in myself to figure it out.
My wife and I are actually expecting the reunion to be boring / uncomfortable and unpleasant. Our hope is to be able to skip out shortly after dinner at this point and catch Wolverine since the kids are spending the night with their grandparents. Why? Because my former classmates will see me and remember the skinny-fat kid who had a handful of friends in different cliques but never fit in with anyone. They’ll remember an intense and often brooding outsider.
They won’t see a man who has spent time in the military, set powerlifting records, and published dozens of books. They won’t see the guy who has been in charge of and designed millions of dollars of production equipment and automation systems. Or if they do, precious few will have any idea why. I mean really, why would I push myself so hard? Why would I want to find out what my limits are, physically, mentally, and emotionally? Why, when I could get by with less work and a good enough result?
Why indeed?
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