Times Change

Have you ever just stopped and taken an look at your life now? Are you where you thought you'd be? Is your life the way you'd pictured it? Are you who you thought you'd be? I will admit it is scary to think of yourself as old or older. Sometimes even a little depressing.

I remember when I was 16 and thought I had a long time before I hit 21. Then one day you hit 21 and your thinking, "wow, I can buy beer now, go to clubs and 25 is so far away. I have plenty of time." I remember being 21 thinking that I would or wanted to be married by the time I was 30. Yup, then you wake up one morning and realize your now 46 single and a parent. Where did the time go?

As we get older it seems like time is going faster. I watch my kids and think God, they can't really be doing that already or they can't really be that age so quick. I miss the times when they actually needed me to help them tie their shoes, get dress, walk and everything else..

Do you remember all the people you use to hang out with and talk to? Do you still talk to those same people? What about all the things you use to do or want to do? Did you do them or were they put on the back burn? I know my life is not how I pictured it and I have realized that if you try to plan your life to much then you will be greatly disappointed. While your planning, your life is flying by. You have got to cherish the unpredictability sometimes.

Now there are always going to be what if's, how comes, should I's and why didn't I's, but if your constantly living, thinking about those you will miss out on so much.

I do sometimes just stop though and think back to how easy life use to be, how much fun we had and how we thought it would last. How times back then weren't as scary as now. When we were kids, yes there were creepy and bad people, but there wasn't so much of it. As kids, we could walk to a friends house alone, go to church and school without being touched in a perverted way by some adult, we didn't have to worry so much about diseases, getting stabbed, shot, or murdered. I know that it did happen on occasion back then, but nothing like now a days. We didn't have to worry about getting beat up just because we were wearing the wrong clothes or shoes.

Remember being a kid and having to actually do chores, use your imagination, and earning certain privileges that kids now a days take for granted. Kids now a days don't have the respect and morals that we as kids did. Parents these days just give the kid everything and don't teach them. They don't discipline them like they use to thanks to all the new laws. When we were kids if we did something wrong we would get a slap on the ass or a belt across the ass. That was an improvement to how kids use to get punished. Our parents use to get worse. I still remember my mom telling me that when my uncles were bad, my grandfather use to make them go out and get a branch from a tree to get their ass smacked with. Of course if you brought in some cheesy ass little thing, you would have to go back out and find a bigger one. You never wanted my grandfather to go and pick it out though cuz then you'd be really screwed.. LOL! Now he didn't beat them, but it made a point and they learned. My grandfather was a very strict, but fair man. I'm sure a lot of us had stories like that. I actually know some parents that still do that.

It's just amazes me at how so much has changed for the good and the bad over the years. It's also funny at times, because things that we as kids use to wear, collect or like are now coming back in style. Of course this makes us feel old, like it use to make our parents when stuff they did and wore came back as well.

Over the years I still just stop and take a trip down memory lane and think about how things were, could have been or might have been and are. It's not living in the past just revisiting it. You should never live in the past, but you should never forget it either because those were the times that made you who and what you are today. Without a past then you have no future. Sometimes it's nice to think of the people and times you had and other times it is sad and disappointing, but no matter what they are your treasures and stories. They are what helped you grow, become stronger and they make you an individual