Everything was about style, especially back then.
Remember?
Everything was about the way you stood or how you moved or responded to the world around you.
Ah, the male ego and all the nonsense that comes with it.
So fragile. So weak. So insecure, and so it was, a long time ago.
I remember well.
At the same time, I am not sure if I remember anything correctly.
Except, of course, the moments that left a mark. Except the memories that left an indentation in my so-called armor, which I used to protect the so-called truth of my vulnerabilities.

I remember this well.
But wait . . .

The anniversary of the date has come and gone. And do you know what?
This is the way life goes. Minutes add up to become hours and hours become days.
Days become weeks, and weeks become months and months become years.
Year . . . can you believe that?
There is nothing as unstoppable and seemingly unmerciful as the movement of time, which, hence, this is what leads me to here and now.
This is where I am, ten years later.

There was something inside of me, or something in me that was aware.
Understand?
There was something that knew a day would come when I would look back and remember this.
But I would see this in hindsight and notice the flags that stuck out.
I do believe in the inherent foreshadowing that leaves a brief moment of awareness and proves that time is short.
This means I need to pay attention.
No?

I believe in the spark of intuitive understanding, and that somehow, the mind awakens.
There is a thought and a moment of emotional awareness that screams to us. This is like the mind telling us to note that times like this will not last forever.
So, make it worthwhile.

I suppose, of course, the saying is true. If you don’t know, then you just don’t know.
Then, of course, what do I know?

I remember walking through my little town, safe in my own self-destruction, and isolated away from the rest of the world. This was me, a tiny trooper, caught up in a war that never needed to exist. Safe to say that I was placed in what I would consider to be a suburban cocoon. What I saw was neither unlike or similar to what you saw because as I see it now, our vision and our interpretations are not the same. At the same time, I am more than sure that we all come to the wrong conclusions.

I remember . . .

And first, it was rock and classic songs that were known and sung by the generation before mine. I was as young as they come and too new and unaware of what I was about to open.
But I was ready.
I say the word “open” as if to open a sacred box, quite opposite from Pandora, but equally, I say once you know, you can never unknow, unsee, or un-feel the experience. Even more, you will never forget the first time you hear a good song. Or even better, you never forget the music that made up the perspective of our youth.
When you know, you know and, of course, I think of the sources and influences and the tiny doses that expand the mind with a vast euphoria.

I don’t believe anything can stay the way it is forever. Then again, forever is a very long time.
And so is never. So, who knows?
There is something though . . .
There is something ongoing and constant, like the movement of time, which is us, which is the fact that we exist — at least in some kind of way.
Here are certain things that can never be stopped, like the process of age. Yet, no one can take away the fact that our youth is as real as we allow it to be.

I cannot say how I exist to you nor can I say how you see me. Our visions are different, even if we are looking at the same things.

There was the idea of going back to relive a day in your life, exactly as it was, and without changing a thing. I first read about this idea when I was reading a book by Robert Fulghum.
I never forgot this idea. However, I was much younger when I read about this.

I was a kid at the time. I had too many “yets” to discover. I had yet to find myself in love. I had yet to see real life or true life. As for the life I saw, I had yet to see anything so grand or so beautiful that I had yet to learn about the beauty of life.

This one is not for me. No, this is for the young man who I spoke with about the semicolon tattoo. At the same time, no, this one is for me.
Or at minimum, this one is from me to you because, yes, there is a great big world out there. I have learned that not everyone understands, cares, or is open to talking about the things that you and I talked about.

I have been told about my writing or the topics that I write about. I have been told that some of my pages can be depressing, or sad, or draw people into the stigmas of mental illness because I write about depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation.

I remember the first time I walked inside of a machine room. I was about to embark on a change that would be bigger than I assumed.
I was previously a salesman. Better yet, I was a kid in a suit and tie and too baby-faced, too wet behind the ears and too frustrated with me, myself, and my life to be good at anything.
I found some luck after helping an old friend. He was down on his luck and drinking vodka all day. A mutual friend took notice and asked me, “What do you want to do with your life?”

The truth is I didn’t know. I didn’t know who or what I wanted to be.
I had no idea about these things. I had no idea about my future—and besides, it’s like I always said back then, “the future is for old people.”
And I wasn’t old.
yet . . .