Newer Life

Today, I made beer with a good friend. A good friend who is on the "newer" side of my life.

Tomorrow, I will drive home and work on fixing my car with my dad. When I was growing up, I wouldn't be caught dead fixing my car with my dad. Somehow I thought I was too good for it, or it was too tedious, or it just wasn't pleasing. Right now, the idea of fixing my own car with the tutelage of my dad sounds like the best way to have a car be fixed. I'm looking forward to it. It will be fulfilling.
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A lot of things are on the "newer" side of my life. A lot of people that I spend the most time with now are not the friends I spent the most time with while in college.

A lot of the things I do in my spare time are not the things I did in my spare time in college.

I appreciate and consider my family and their place in my life now more than I ever have before.

The people I've known the longest are the people I seem to know the least anymore.
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I developed a strong attachment to nostalgia when I was in my senior year of high school. The sense of impending (and drastic) change created this self-awareness that the life that was most important then would not be important soon after. I knew, somewhere inside, that everything I was experiencing was soon not only going to be a memory, but it was going to FEEL like a memory. It wasn't going to be my life anymore.

And that's what happened.
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I moved away. I lost connections. I lost intimacy with nearly everyone I used to be close to. New things became important and old things became immature.

And I knew that was coming. I knew that the progressive characteristic of life was stronger than my nostalgia, so it was best served before the moment changed; in the moment where I could still appreciate what I was experiencing. People, places, conversations, passions, ambitions, jokes, events.
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Things seem to always be moving toward the next "newer." That isn't a bad thing, and most of you are saying, "duh!", but it is strange to wander into one of those moods where the pace that life seems to move at is so unstoppable and inevitable. I am obviously in one of those moods right now.

It is strange how life progresses, or has been progressing for me. Actually, it is only strange when I think back to some of my previous ambitions for how my life would be progressing. Where I thought I would be going/wanted to go isn't necessarily where I'm going/can go.

And that just makes me wonder. And remember.
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I remember when writing in this blog was one of the most important things to me. It still is. But it also isn't the same. It's meaning and place in my life has changed, in some ways out of necessity and others out of choice. But I remember how I used to think. I remember what this blog meant to me and where it meant I was going and what I was doing; this blog was the door frame that traced my height each week as I got taller, and taller, and taller. It was a marker, a measuring stick, an Ebenezer, that marked where I've been and where I'm going.

It was my little space that was proof that I existed and had something to offer the world in any way.

I remember that so clearly. And I miss it. It was fulfilling, it worked, and it was simple.
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When I look at this blog now, I feel a mixture of pride, guilt, sadness, and joy.

Pride that I was able to say things I believed and that meant something to me, and that a few people have found meaning in some of my words too.

Guilt that I haven't maintained it as what it used to be.

Sadness that the change in this blog suggests there is a change in me. Regardless of good or bad, this is a change I wish was different.

And joy that it is still here, even if less recent and full. It exists and can go with me as long as I'll have it.
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All this progress towards "newer" leaves so much behind. Not by choice, but by principle. "Newer" means that something current needs to become "older." People need to shift categories. Places, ideas, hopes, dreams, habits, books, movies, and almost everything else starts to shift categories just because one day ends and another comes.

And we can't take it all with us. We shouldn't. More importantly, we shouldn't want to. But isn't there a part of you that can appreciate the nostalgia you feel right now for the things that haven't even left yet? Because you know there are things you've left that you hardly miss, and that doesn't seem fair. You can't imagine that some of the things you have right now, the ones you know you won't have much longer, may one day not even be missed.

That is why nostalgia is most potent, for me, before something even changes.
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People are adaptive. I'm adaptive, you're adaptive, and the next person you think about is adaptive too. We progress into "newer" because it's the way the world is. It was made that way. And that is okay.

Good things come. Many of the best things in our lives are still far ahead of most of you that read this. Those of you who think that none of the best is still ahead of you, I bet you have a few surprises coming your way. And the same is true for me.
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I suppose the strongest nostalgic emotion I feel comes when I wonder which of my current motivating hopes or dreams will be the next I classify as "immature" or let go of. What is the next thing that plays such a crucial role in my life that will be replaced by something newer?
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I made beer tonight with a "newer" friend who is a great man. I live with a "newer" friend who is one of the most patient and calm people I've ever met. I'm dating a girl I barely knew till after my junior year, and she is wonderful.

I used to never want to work with my dad on my cars. The "newer" me finds that experience invaluable.

I wonder what's next.
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Peace.