No time for nostalgia

The weather's warmed in the last few days, approximately coeval with my realization that the days are noticeably longer. So as I basked in my sun-warmed car (to a classic rock soundtrack) during my noon hour run, I could nearly believe that 20 years had fallen away. As many of we "d'une certaine age" folks feel under comparable circumstances.

I'd be lying if I said that I didn't smile at the recurring, enduring charm of that notion. But this was the first season that something in me stiffened and said, "No thank you." to the illusion. Losing 20 years would rewind me to a person I (mostly) don't care to be. Someone who saw The Real World as something to be joined after jumping through the hoops of schooling. The me that I am now understands that, for most purposes and barring extreme circumstances, you really do make your own world--for good and ill.

I flatter myself that I've been able to stand back from the zeitgeist--where it is, where it's likely headed--for years. But the sensation of being on the outside looking in solidified only recently. It feels rather like watching flotsam tossed about on the waves inexorably pulled in or out with the tide, but no longer feeling the urge to sport in the waves myself. Just being content to roll up my pant legs and dig my toes into the smooth, damp sand while the water regularly laps at my ankles. To watch for sails (or ominous clouds) on the horizon, to collect shells or other treasures from the sea.

I will be hoisting my own sails again at some point in the next year or so, but being tossed about like sea-froth by the tide is not in the plan. That's the difference that 20 years makes. Or one difference, at any rate. Apparently, a certain resistance to the coquettish side of proto-Spring is another.