Remember when you were young and every little thing felt like the end of the world? Life was over because someone didn’t call. Life was over because a relationship ended. Life was over because your boss looked at you funny. Life was over because your feelings got hurt, your plans fell apart, or somebody had the audacity to misunderstand your intentions.
Back then, we used “life is over” pretty casually. As it turns out, life is only over when life is actually over.
Everything else? It’s just living. Sometimes badly. Sometimes beautifully.
At the time, though, you couldn’t have convinced me otherwise. I thought those disappointments, frustrations, and betrayals were going to kill me. I was certain I had suffered catastrophic emotional irreparable damage.
The things I thought would destroy me, didn’t.
Time eventually walked in and said, “Move over, amateur. Let me show you what real problems look like.”
I recently ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in about fifteen years. Fifteen years. That’s long enough for technology to change, faces to change, bodies to change, and for you to become old enough that it takes a moment to see, much less recognize someone you haven’t seen in a such a long time.
Twenty plus years ago when we met, I was a completely different person.
Well, not completely different. The same basic ingredients. Just less seasoned. Less cooked. More dramatic.
Within minutes of talking, he started reminding me of things I had completely forgotten. The drama. The nonsense. The endless venting sessions. The emotional emergencies that required immediate processing because apparently, I believed the universe itself was hanging in the balance.
He laughed and reminded me how many times he talked me off a ledge. Not a literal ledge. I wasn’t standing on rooftops contemplating a jump. I was standing on emotional ledges. The kind where you’re convinced your world is collapsing because somebody didn’t appreciate you enough, or because you’re trying to force a situation to become something it was never going to be. He jokingly reminded me how he used to listen while I spiraled. How he reassured me that things would work out.
And standing there listening, I had one immediate thought:
What I wouldn’t give for those kinds of problems now!
For one, I would’ve started using the phrase “kiss my ass” much earlier.
Age changes a lot of things. One thing you don’t grow more of is tolerance. Maybe tolerance for human imperfections. Maybe tolerance for waiting in lines. Maybe tolerance for realizing that most people are carrying invisible burdens.
But tolerance for bullshit?
Yeah. No. That tank runs real low.
Lack of time does something interesting to your perspective. When you’re young, time feels unlimited. You spend it freely because you think another truckload is arriving tomorrow. You argue longer. Worry harder. Stay in situations too long. You chase people who are walking away and force yourself in to spaces you were never designed to fit.
Then somewhere along the line, you realize time isn’t renewable. For me, it was 60. Time gets extremely valuable, and suddenly nonsense becomes way too expensive.
As I stood there talking to him, I found myself revisiting my past. A time before losses I didn’t see coming. Before grief changed the landscape. Before devastating changes in my family. Before mistakes that looked reasonable at the time and ridiculous in hindsight.
Our conversation felt like opening an old photo album and meeting someone I vaguely recognized.
Me.
A version of me twenty-some years early when we actually met.
And now I imagine we’ll catch up again soon. He’ll ask about my family, and I will have to explain all the ways life quietly rearranged itself. I’ll have to tell the parts of the story I never imagined I’d have to tell.
As I walked away, I felt something I wasn’t expecting.
I wanted to go back.
Not because life was better. It wasn’t. Not because I was wiser. I WAS NOT. Not because I had everything figured out. This will sound crazy. I wanted to go back because I missed being stupid. I missed believing heartbreak was the worst thing that could happen. I missed believing disappointment was devastation. I missed the innocence of not knowing what was coming.
Because once life introduces you to real loss, you never completely unknow it.
But maybe that’s the trade-off.
You lose innocence and gain perspective.
You lose certainty and gain wisdom.
You lose time and finally understand its value.
And for a brief moment, I found myself missing a version of life where my biggest problems weren’t really problems at all.
A time when what felt like life or death…
wasn’t either.