Rite of passage

Remember when you were younger and thought “I can do anything!” without any sort of repercussion?  I’ve been thinking about that recently - especially since Sperm is approaching teenage years.  I look back to some of the things I have done and gone - wow, I survived?  Don’t get me wrong — I did not jump out of a moving car or freefall from a cliff face like these adrenaline junkies on the Amp commercials do, my brushes with “coolness” were more grounded.

For a brief time in the late 80s, I moved to Athens, GA with the idea that I was going to go to UGA.  My parents gave me $4000 to get started and I was to apply for Pell Grants and the like as my education continued.  But instead, I bought a great new stereo for my car, new clothes, and oh-by the way, lots and lots of drugs.  (OMG - the B-52s at Legion Field, Fall 1988.  Probably the most fun I have ever had at a concert in my life.  And I was SO high.  It was the perfect combination of things.)  However, in 15 short months, the $4000 was gone and my checking account was overdrawn by $500.  The only way my folks found out (and what saved me from going to jail for fraud) was that C&S (the precursor to Bank of America for you non-Georgians) wrote a letter to my parents.  Within a month, my folks packed up my shit and I was living under their roof.  My Athens experience was over.  And here I was back in Marietta, under my parents roof.  I was happy to get my old job back and I met new friends.  (And yes, I still did some drugs — I mean, come on.  I may have lost the independence, but I was only 21 for goodness sake!)

During the Athens Era, I was happy.  I had friends, parties, drugs, drinks, sex — everything a boy of 20 would want.  But I kinda wish I had those years back.  You know?  I mean what if I had graduated school then rather than waiting another 6 years?  Oh what about that original $4000?  Wow, I wonder what type of life I would have now?

But you know, it really does not matter.  I say “woulda, coulda, shoulda” a lot and it definitely applies here.  I am not going to come close to second guessing my life (thus far).  If I had chosen a different path, then I would not have the friends I have now, I would not have Missus (and Diva) and most importantly, I would not have Sperm.  He is the reason I am who I am today.  He is the by-product of all of shifts of direction I took and I now can enjoy watching him experience his life as it unfolds before him. 

No, life is a series of chapters in a book.  This is just one of them.  And the book is nowhere close to being done.