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 . . .

Ah, the City. She looks different to me now. At the same time, my City has been there with me through every change, every win, every downfall, and every rebound.
I have been here and lived here throughout the different stages of my life.
I love her.
My City.
It has been a while since I have played hooky, just to walk the streets of Manhattan. It’s been even longer since I ran around the streets at night or stayed out until the daylight showed me a smile.

None of the places I used to go to are still around anymore. The landscapes have changed, and people have changed.
Politics have changed as well, and let’s face it, politics is the new religion now.
Who or what God you pray to is less important than who or what side you voted for.

But this is not about that . . .

I have dreams about places from the days called way back. I have dreams about my old childhood home. I often dream about the playgrounds and schoolyards in my town. I have a dream about being on the roof of my grade school. Of course, everything looks the way it did, way back when.

Although rare, there are times when I have to take an antihistamine to stop the symptoms from my cold. I have to be really sick for me to take something.
I don’t like cold medicine. They mess with my sleep too.
This is when the dreams become odd.
However, and as I am now, I have about a quarter of my left nostril that I can breathe through. I have a cough that won’t quit and my head weighs a ton.
But this is life and yes, this is one of the many temporary stations that I find myself in.

It would appear to me that the dignity of things has changed.
I remember being a boy.
I remember sports on regular television.
Do you?

I remember the days before major sporting events were on pay-per-view. And I have to say it now, loud and clear, the price to see these major sporting events, are ranked up there with rape, pillage, and steal!
But this is the world we live in. Inflation is real and everything is about money.
Bills are real too. We need to pay and yes, there is always a new fad and there will always be a new invention or a new creation. Thus, I don’t see the cost of living going anywhere but up.

Life is different now. Or maybe nothing is different, per se, and the only thing that’s changed is my relation to the morning or the hours in which I go to sleep.
I am an early riser, of course. Then again, I have never been a late sleeper. There was a phase of my younger life when my hours led me through the nighttime and thus, the dawn was my proof that I was somehow still alive.
No matter how late I came home, I have always had a thing for the sunrise.

Perhaps there were summers of wild times, like the renegades of me 20’s and the catastrophes that sunk my hopes and hurt my spirit.
Perhaps there was a period of reckless decline, sober though, but I was more sober in name than in spirit.

I understand this now. I understand why it is said that youth is wasted on the young.
Moreover, I understand why people would say, if I only knew what I know now, my life would be completely different.
Of course it would be.
I understand why I used to believe that the future was something for old people to worry about. And then I grew older. I used to believe that tomorrow was always a given. I believed that there would always be other chances and other opportunities to see something beautiful, one more time.

I understand why people consider the idea that at some point, we walked away from someone for the last time, and no one knew.