"When I Was a Boy" Dar Williams

If below, then above.

I look back fondly at more youthful times.  I smooth out actual history with a romanticized one, tempering rigors and diminishing challenges and somehow rounding out the edges.  What I'm left with is a false memory of what it meant to be 26 having just begun working, 24 and traveling the world, 19 and the independence of college, 12 and taking walks at night around my neighborhood, 10 and eating cereal while watching the Jetsons.

What I seem to casually forget in these moments are the fighting, the uneasiness with being me, the car accidents, the knee injuries, the awkwardness of age 13, the hunger, the deprivation.

At age 45 I will look back at age 33 and remember only the promise of business school, the simplicity of working at a company with a gym, the relationships, the financial independence and good fortune.

But tonight, you are sleep deprived, with a broken Samsung TV, wondering if you're overweight at 154 lbs., having a room mate across the hallway, the ringer volume of your iPhone isn't loud enough, and you're wondering if you can get Dar Williams tickets at the Largo.