I recently found out that my High School graduating class is planning on holding a 20 year reunion this year. O.M.G. has it really been that long already? When I was in school I could hardly stand waiting 20 minutes for the lunch bell to ring and those last 20 days before summer vacation seemed to go on and on for ages. Back in high school I was doubtful I would live to reach age 20 and now that was already 20 years ago. Hell, I am older now than my mom was back then! (That last sentence gives me a chill, brrr) All the sudden I am forced to come to terms with a number that represents more than half of my life so far. Where does the time go?
We tend to compare units of time with our own experience. When we are young, a small amount of time can represent a large portion of our lives. For example when we are 1 year old, a single month is already about 1/10th of our entire life and at 10 years old, 1 year represents the same which feels like a damn long time. Nowadays a year usually flies by quicker than I can get out to buy a new calendar and 20 years just feels like an extended vacation ago. I guess it is just like money. When you have $100 dollars in your pocket, dinner and a movie are no big deal, but when your down to your last $5 dollars even a milkshake at McDonalds looks expensive.
Things are probably a little different for me than for most others because I left the country 20 years ago. A clean breaking point which left a distinct separation between the former and latter half of my life. I always felt like things were just on hold for a while and that I could simply continue where I left off at any time by going home. I guess, somewhere deep inside of me, I still hope there might be a place that is exactly the way it was when I left. Where all of my friends are still waiting for me at the pool table in the bowling alley and the biggest problems are acne and how to get some beer for the weekend.
I realize now that a big part of the reason for this is that I haven’t really grown up much since then. I have a few more wrinkles and the long hair has a slight touch of grey (just a tiny bit, hehe), but in my attitude and actions I am still pretty much exactly the same as 20 years ago. I run around with a young crowd and my kids are still relatively young. You’ll definitely find me quicker by staking out the nightclubs than the pubs, I avoid wearing plaid at all costs and my best friend of many years, “Clarissa”, just turned 24. Sure, I hear the occasional “Don’t you think your too old to be acting like this!” or “Isn’t it about time you started taking life seriously!”, but I counter those attacks the exact same way I did in the 7th grade. “I’m old enough to know better, but too young to care!” and ” It’s better to regret something you did than something you didn’t do!”
I have spent the last 20 years living mostly amongst strangers with different values and odd cultures where I never really fit in as “normal” anyway, so it was easy for me to stay pretty much the same as I was when I was 16. 20 years ago I joined the Army and served for 5 years (I hated almost every single day of it although I did have some pretty wild adventures, but I’ll save those for another time. Let’s just say I am not one for taking orders. Ask me to do something and I will give it a shot, tell me to do something and you’ll probably be waiting a long time) and anybody who has served can tell you that the last thing they want you to do in the Army is to grow up. They take care of EVERYTHING for you, just like mom did. They also tell you what to do and then give you guidelines on when, where and how its to be done. I guess they figure that if you grow up, you might just get a conscience and not feel like killing people anymore.
When I was 25 I started going to a typical German “Berufschule” (about the equivalent of a high school with vocational training) where all of my classmates were 15 and 16 years old. Not only was I accepted by teachers and peers, but being from “out of town” (more like “out of country”) and the fact that the other students where going through those terrible teens, (my wisdom became a highly sought after commodity) I even became quite popular throughout the school.
After graduating there, I went on to study Systems Engineering during the beginning of the dot.com boom (a time when it was okay for a “computerwiz ” to be a little eccentric) and from there on to manage the IT-department of a regional telecommunications company (where ALL my peers in the upper echelon were a little weird. You know the type: young, wealthy and egoistic). Essentially I never really felt the need to grow up because everybody just accepted that this “crazy foreigner” is simply a little different from the rest of the general population.
My kids love the way I am. My 8 year old son recently said “Dad, I’m so happy you aren’t like other dads.” I asked him what he meant by that and he replied “You like to have fun.” It turns out he was talking about the fact that when others go with the kids to the playground, they usually just sit on a bench and chat with the other mothers (I rarely see another father at the playground) while the kids do their own thing, but when they are with me I can never just sit on the bench and watch. I am right there beside them jumping, climbing, sliding and being silly. We usually end up with most of the other kids at the playground joining in on our fun and I get a whole line of little laughing faces following my every move.
Unfortunately, not growing up can have it’s disadvantages too. I tend to be messy, disorganized and sometimes don’t take things as seriously as I should. Also, some people my own age can become easily aggravated, sometimes even aggressive, about my behavior (but they are mostly just jealous of my fun). There are times when I wish I would have developed into a different person, but those times are few and far between.
Oh well, I guess if I haven’t grown up by now, I probably never will.
Abnormal Thoughts 