Age Brings Perspective or “Why I knew everything at 20.” (Part 1)
Like many people out there, I used to know everything. I knew what was best for me in all circumstances, my parents were dated and simply couldn’t understand what I was going through and I was a beautiful and entirely unique individual that the rules applied to in a different manner. Don’t get me wrong, we’re all unique, just like everyone else, and as such you can’t statically apply the life experience of one person to another, but what you begin to understand as 30 looms is that experience certainly has its place and shouldn’t always be ignored.
More than just listening to words of the older an wiser, today I’m reflecting on how much my personal perspective on so many things around me has changed in the last ten years. This was brought about because earlier today I opened up contact with an old friend whom I had a falling out with a little over three years ago. The details of the falling out are unimportant, not only because no one needs to know them for the sake of the points I’m making but because, the truth is, they’re generally unimportant. They were important when I was turning 25 and had to be right and everyone who disagreed with me was wrong. They aren’t now.
The story leading up to this is kind of funny. The two of us were mutual geeks and had been over the course of our friendship and had set up a collocated server four or so years ago. I’m in the process of retiring that server and switching over to a shared hosting plan because it’s cheaper and the novelty of having “my own server” has worn off. (In fact, the novelty of a lot of my old geek ways have given way to being pragmatic, which almost sums up my whole life.) We had a few shared domains that, even after our falling out, he left running on the server because mutual friends had email addresses there and stuff like that. So, as I was preparing to take the server down, it occurred to me, “Hmmm… I should probably contact Frodo again.” And, to be honest, I had a feeling minor communication like this might tear down an old barrier.
To find his email address I had to do a bit of “metastalking,” that’s what he called it anyway. A quick search on Google found his blog which in turn lead to his email address. It also lead to the discovery that his wife was pregnant and although another mutual friend had mentioned this to me offhandedly not too long ago, his entry made it obvious. As such I wrote a brief email explaining the server situation and the congratulated him. As I thought—and I’d argue hoped—he responded back with a more lengthy reply with an apology and I in turn wrote back stating, “There’s no reason to dwell on the stupidity of a couple 20-something males who were all too interested in chest beating.”
It’s funny to me how quickly the whole affair, even the anger I’ve been harboring for the past few years, simply fizzled. It was just gone. I’m not going to say some of our problems weren’t problems or even that the falling out was unfounded but as they say, “Time heals all wounds.” (Although, my uncle always counters, and I agree, “Time wounds all heels.”) It just doesn’t matter anymore and it’s a weird to feel that weight disappear. I know when people split up—friends, lovers, even family—often times we’ll immediately demonize those people to justify yourself. You’re not always wrong in doing so, but I’d say that’s the exception rather than the rule. We got to talking pretty easily and the fact is, there’s a reason we were friends before, despite the fact that if you’d asked me why a couple years ago I would have said, “I don’t know why. There’s nothing to like about the guy!” That amuses me.
I actually had more to say on this topic, not just about Frodo, but about age changing perspective in general but K.L. is here and she tends to take precedence over… well… pretty much everything!