Ignorance IS Bliss

I received an Evite (remember when people used to send cards with envelopes?) to a 40th birthday party of an old high school friend.  It was....weird.  Not the invitation, but to think that this person is going to be 40.  Let's face, in my mind, I have pictures in my head of my schoolmates.  They're all teenagers, and we're wearing cool 80s clothes, and we're doing the same, silly teenager stuff that kids do today.  In my mind, we're all still back there, in high school, dealing with teen angst and test scores.

But it's not true, and this invitation proves it.  My mind might be playing out happy little stories of 22 years ago, but reality is pushing me forward, making me accept my own age, and the age of my friends.

This is a problem.  It's one thing to grow old "alone" where your past has no connection with your present.  But when that past catches up to you - WHAMMO.  It really solidifies "40" in a way that I wasn't expecting.  I'm not the first of my high school friends to turn 40, but now that I am 40, it seems as though I'm catching on to things, and these things are affecting me more.

Acknowledging friends from the past and trying to synch them up with the present is weird.  One of my other good friends from high school and I see each other almost regularly (when our schedules permit).  On one of our first get-togethers, we reminisced about an old story from school.  We were both active participants in that story, but when we discussed it, we ended up with two different stories.  After all these years, we're not sure which one is right.

And this just goes back to that whole "happy place" in my mind.  When I'm confronted with the present, I get conflict, and age, and probably a lot of fat, baldness and wrinkles.  But in my mind, we're all happy and young, and the stories I remember are exactly how it happened.  Ahhh.....