Life Lessons

Today, I stumbled across a video store.

An absolute capsule from a different life.

One full of simplicity and straight-forward answers.

Or maybe it was me,

A simpler entity.

When did life get so complicated?

When did choices become so difficult?

When did I lose all the answers

I once swam in as a child?

When did my eyes become cloudy?

And my mind filled with noise?

What happened to the hopes of the future?

And the dragging of time?

I miss the feel of sunshine

Warming up my cheeks.

Red with running and friendship.

When I wasn't worried about

What tomorrow would bring.

But people change and grow,

As the seasons come and go.

And we forget some of the struggles

That childhood brought and taught.

Now I know blood doesn't make family,

And people, they come and go.

That nothing beats the freedom

Of driving and too and fro.

That the taste of bitter liquor,

Once taboo and oh so gross,

Goes smoothly with experience

Of life and of sorrow.

That nothing beats the feeling,

Of a partner's hand in mine.

And how to raise my children,

So their lives are better than mine.

To watch the people around you,

So you learn how not to be.

And collect the positive moments,

Cause they'll last longer than things.

To be kind to those around you,

Cause struggles are well hidden,

And no one knows what's going on

And that's true more than we think.

I don't have it quite together,

And I'm scared more times than not.

But childhood has come and gone,

just like the time of the DVD shop.

So videostore,

I thought I was like you.

But I can grow and you cannot.

You're stuck in your own time loop.

You might now be redundant,

And I might now be old,

But with age comes experience,

That's worth its weight in gold.

And child me, don't you worry,

Because we are gonna make it.

It might take a year or decade or two,

But we are strong enough to take it.

We will keep gathering experience,

And the wisdom that it brings,

And one day we will pass it on,

To future kids and kings.

We aren't redundant, we grow.

And success always comes slow.

Keep sluggin', keep tuggin',

Until we are buried in the floor.

Then we will become the foundation,

Of what is better and new,

And we will know that part of it,

Was all because of you.