What I Miss

I don't know that I miss being young, although there are certainly a host of things about being young I miss. And by young I don't necessarily mean still in grade school, junior high, or high school, although even those days had certain advantages. Back then I was even more naive than I am now. The truth is - I miss that. There are things I wish I had never learned, because now that I know them I can't forget them.

I was in eighth grade before I was confronted with any drug stronger than tobacco or beer. When I entered eighth grade I had no clue what a "rubber" was, and that my brother stayed overnight at his girlfriend's house meant nothing to me.

But I don't know that I would want to be eight, ten, twelve, or fifteen years old again - even if it was in the same social era. Not for me. Not anymore.

The years I guess I miss most are the "lost years". Those fell within that span of time when I was reasonably healthy and strong, and in a position to use those gifts to my advantage. Only I didn't.

I could feel my feet in those days. Now they're mostly numb. A month ago I looked down and discovered I had somehow managed to scrape the skin off a toe without realizing it. The lack of feeling puts my feet at tremendous risk. That was not a problem in my twenties.

In my twenties my legs did not hurt all day every day. I often got up in the morning and, instead of attending college classes, found a place where I could hit tennis balls off a wall for hours on end. Now I can hardly hit a tennis ball, much less do it for hours on end.

Back then I could run and throw. Now I can't. I tire with a fast walk. Can't run at all. And the arthritis from my shoulder separation has made it very difficult for me to throw with any kind of strength or accuracy. Not that I was ever that accurate. But there had been a time I was strong. I once threw a baseball through a chain link fence. The fence slowed the pitch enough that no one behind the backstop was injured. But I got their attention, I assure you. Wrecked a guy's brand new baseball glove in three or four throws.

I guess that's what we really miss about being young, isn't it? Physical things. Not intelligence. Not awareness. Not comprehension. Those things come with age. There are things I desperately tried to understand at twenty that I just take for granted now. At twenty I had no patience for anyone or anything. At fifty I have plenty of patience. It comes with lack of energy.

At twenty everyone was "the best", or "the worst". At fifty everything seems familiar, like I've somehow seen it before. In the movie, Lawrence of Arabia, Sir Alec Guiness, playing Prince Feisal, makes a statement which I find to be quite true.

"Young men wage wars, and the virtue of wars are the virtues of young men: strength, courage and passion. Old men must wage the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: caution, mistrust and deceit."

The young are passionate because they believe everything will make an immediate difference. The old lose their passion because they come to understand that immediacy is not always possible - or even desirable. So, like clumsy animals in china shops the young charge forward and break a lot of things which shouldn't be broken. Meanwhile, like sleeping dragons, the old wait and do nothing, allowing injustices to continue which should never have been allowed to even begin.

What I miss most about being young is the sense of indestructibility which so often accompanies it. I miss the energy to continue and draw upon hidden reserves which just don't seem to be at my disposal anymore. That, and good health. But I do not begrudge what wisdom I have acquired in the thirty years since I "knew it all".

That's the other thing about getting older. At twenty, nobody could tell me anything. Now there's so much I don't know. What happened to all of that unlimited knowledge anyway? I used to know everything. When I was young.