Day 53: Growing Up

I take so much joy in seeing how people I grew up with turned out. There’s something oddly fascinating about not having seen, heard from, or have had access to people and then one day all that changes. It’s as if this magical bubble carrying years and years of history floats right in front of my face and bursts open to reveal all sorts of varying details, some great and some, unfortunately, the opposite. Especially in those cases in which the person has turned into someone completely different than I would have ever guessed or suspected or even thought possible, the experience has been all the more gratifying and brilliant. I love alternative endings.

I can’t pinpoint why it is, but it’s fascinating seeing people I thought I knew once upon a time take on likes and interests that they once either denounced outright or never gave any indication whatsoever they would eventually gravitate to. Kids who found the darkest corner of the gymnasium during P.E. back in the day, for example, are now avid Husker fans. Kids who showed no inclination for sports are now running marathons. Kids I never would have guessed had leadership skills tucked somewhere inside themselves have evidently found their inner pioneer and now letting those skills roar. Kids who I once deemed unsocial or shy or inhibited are now full of life and living on the edge. Beautiful.  

All this is exactly why life is such a tremendous experiment. At any given time and in any given place, you can decide to become whatever you want. You can literally change everything about yourself, and it’s allowed. You can flip-flop, backtrack, rearrange, morph, tear apart, and build and destroy in a mere second, and there’s nothing that can stop it.

I try not to live in the past, but I like to revisit it, and I love when perceptions I held in the past are decimated and turned to dust. I love surprises, and I love more the surprises people from years ago continually spring on me.

It makes me wonder how I was perceived and if those perceptions have changed.