time

I realized a few things the other night when I was driving through the rural parts of Sacramento. The full moon draped a blue slip over the fields and across the sky. It was the way you expect driving through enormous planes of nothingness to feel: cold, sober, a slick black road rolling beneath the wheels. A*Teens came on the stereo (because some loves never die), and it dawned on me that I'm grateful for the season I'm in.

It's nice to be old enough to pretend I know better, but young enough to reap forgiveness with each mistake I make (and there are a lot of mistakes). I "don't know anything about anything," but that isn't so bad because smarter, more capable adults don't expect answers from me--only questions. And my mind is like a bonfire, sparking popping eating growing...and full of questions.

It's nice to be young enough to not yet have a past filled with regrets.

But why is it that when we're young, we're pressured to grow up? And then once we're grown up, we try and chase our youth until we die?

I hope I stay with someone into their old age--not literally. Not like I will with Fred--two geezers yelling at each other because we forgot to turn on our hearing aids. I'd like to touch the center of people and make them laugh (or even cry?), to inspire a change that stays long after I'm gone. I've spent so many years trying to abolish insincerity, to inspire awe, to cultivate special things, but now I'm not sure if I've changed a thing. I'm not even sure if I've succeeded in changing myself.

In seventh grade, I took a friend's picture with a disposable camera during lunch. She was hugging a tree, her backpack tossed to the side and her tongue sticking out to proudly display a mouthful of chewed-up Cheetos. I don't have that picture anymore. After the camera flashed, she laughed and it made me laugh, and that's what I remember now. Not the picture, but the laughing.

And when I think about that, I realize that maybe I'm not sure what season I'm in anymore.