My Lost Youth

I'm having a grueling weekend. Birthday parties, out-of-town family, a long drive tomorrow so that my ex can see his daughter, a little work on the car air conditioning, and of course constant cleaning of the house, yard maintenance, washing the dog, getting ready for a garage sale, etc.

It seems this is what my life has come to.

Those concerts that I used to go to three nights a week on Cherry Street or downtown Brady district, the all-night clubs where we used to stand on the street drinking our beer until 4 a.m., the old-town pubs that once had open-mic nights, and poetry readings - all now serve double half-caf latte's and moccachino's, or flavored water and expensive trinkets to yuppie antiquer's out for a Saturday stroll.

The once familiar sound of jazzy blue's wailing out from Greenwood and Archer on a Friday night has been replaced with rap music, police sirens and the occasional tap-tap-tap of gunfire.

I don't know. I don't know anyone who hangs out at Denny's to drink coffee and discuss Nietzsche anymore (while Bob Dylan's Hurricane plays in the background). And I suppose one could ask just as easily "Doesn't anyone remember Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?" Its all pretty relative.

Amidst growing older, we sometimes grow out of those once loved pastimes and passions. We forget what truly made us happy, though at most times we'd have sworn we were depressed and moody teenagers (- in our twenties), club kids, bored out of our minds, ready to throw it all away for "true love" and madness.

At the height of that, the true happiness of those years was the absence of responsibility, or the unconcern for anything that tied us to one spot for too long.

We loved and hated our parents equally, and couldn't explain to them that the lack of respect and defiance of authority was simply a reflection, our collective reflection, of our generation; products and rebels of a hippie-beatnik era; raised on Nintendo, MTV, and Tony Hawk. Generation X, and how we loved that title, now I'm sure entitled something else far less appealing to people like me; something more diplomatic; historically-aesthetically pleasing. I try not to stay up on these things. I'm not sure yet if it's out of a fear of conformance, a true lack of interest, or simply time constraints. Who has time to care?

It dulls me, sometimes, to stop and think of how many years it's actually been since I dropped everything for a mid-summer trip to the Colorado mountains, or the small dusty towns of New Mexico. Most times I am amazed that my spirit was ever so free. And it's this time of year, this hot humidity that clings and sticks to every orifice, reminding me of cool Colorado summers, that drives into me the fact that here I am, one more year down the road, doing the same thing that I did last year. Today's just a different day.

It's hot outside, I know that, and only getting hotter. The dog has fleas again. The grass is touching my ankles and I've got to get beer and steaks first thing in the morning. There's a bulb out in one of the yard lights, and I haven't vacuumed in a couple of days. Then work again Monday morning.

Honestly, I don't have time to think about solutions to anything so existential these days. Once again, I've got to run...