oh you're so young

'oh you're so young, you have plenty of time to______(fill in the blank) a) figure out your life b) find a mate c) establish your career d) learn a language, on and on, you get the idea.

everytime i heard it i loved it. i didn't want people to stop telling me how young i am and how much time i have. i was always so comforted hearing this. who wouldn't like to be reminded that they have all the time in the world, as if the clock stopped ticking when it came to me?! sometime in my mid-twenties i began wondering when i would stop hearing this phrase said to me. for a number of years i even began to question to friends about this.

as i suspected the time has come when i rarely hear these words spoken to me. that have to admit that this does sadden me a bit. in part it is a nostalgia for the past, a longing for eternal youth. wanting to know that this crazy ride will never end.

last night i had a date with myself. my fiance is out of town. i got all dressed up and took myself out to see my favorite band from texas, the asylum street spankers. as always, it was a fantastic show. there weren't as many sex and drugs songs however. they sang 2 songs from their children's album (yes, they made a whole album appropriate for kids!?). christina's pregnant. wammo cut his hair and was wearing a button-up shirt. not quite like the days of old. and it didn't feel like when i would go out back in the day, wondering who i would meet, feeling such freedom.

these days im not looking to meet to meet anyone and that is a different and wonderful feeling of freedom, that includes not going home disappointed and feeling all alone in the world. while i do feel strange in this period, this transition watching my youth slowly diminish in the distance i see that we are all on the merry go round together. it would be cheating if i stayed 27, forever being told how young i am, as bespectacled wammo, expectant christina and the eternally changing line up strum a new tune, that is now my new tune, everyday's a parade.