Notes on the Years

Reflecting on an old classmate and friend who passed away a few days ago. I was away from home, jotting down thoughts as they came to me. I'm not going to attempt to organize or edit. Just going to put them down here as they arrived earlier. It may sound naive not make a great amount of sense but it's just me struggling with this place where I'm finding myself and talking from. Trying to find my way through it .....

A subject that I've written about a dozen times the past few years and thought about almost daily over the last year or two ..... Aging and people I know from my youth, passing away.

When you hear of an old classmate reaching the end of their years and visualize them in their youth .... in our youth.

And it sure doesn't feel like fifty or sixty years ago.

And you see them in memories, smiling and laughing. 

And you had your own personal encounters with them. 

And it's like: "How is this possible? How did we go from that point of youth and friends and shared experiences to this point where we are slowly dying off? How is this possible? Why couldn't we stay young?"

We didn't have the technology that youth has now but that was fine and enough.

We laughed a lot and told stories and shared experiences.

Just like our parents before us ..... and their parents ..... 

We went through our youth and the years after and have history and memories unique to our generation of teens and early 20-somethings ..... Vietnam, oil shortages, the '69 world series, disco and punk rock, etc.

And now why do we have to get old and have health issues and fade away?

We seemed so invincible once and without limits and now seemingly so frail.

Visualizing what we once were, it doesn't seem possible. 

Those times sometimes feel closer than last nights dinner.

I'll be driving along in my car reminiscing and it feels like a dream that I can reach out and touch.

Or that those times can still be (or should still be) our current reality.

Young and energetic.

Or like I can turn down the street where our old schools still stand and see all those old friends again.

And you probably once stood on this corner together, or this exact spot in this parking lot ..... and laughed.

And when I think of a specific person, I see them in my thoughts as I knew them back then and not like their latest photo on facebook.

And maybe that's why it's so difficult to accept that another has passed away.

And I doubt this is the end of these notes and thoughts so, to be continued ......