Today is friday July 1st, my life isnt so simple anymore, due mostly to the fact that July 3rd is my 20th birthday.Birthdays in the past were usually no big deal, I would just be a year older, nothing changed. I sometimes didnt even know it was my birthday untill I got a call from my mom or something.
But now it all changes, the big two zero. I'm not sure why this gets me down but it does. Maybe its the fact that I'm no longer a teen. No more fun.No more insane party I used to call my life. Now I'm just a freakin' old fart. My carefree days of youth, gone forever. Doomed to a life overcast with responsibilitys and worries. I look back to my high school days and long to be back, to the time when it was all one long blur of excitement and thrills. Now I've only been out of high school for close to 2 years and it feels like eternity. Dont get me wrong, being in bais medrash with my boys is heck of a lot of fun, but I just look around and realize how fragile our existence is. Everyone always moves on, grows up and casts off, into the great big murky sea of life, leaving me groping on the deck, wondering if it will be me who walks the plank next. Guys will just go to Israel, get married, and move on with their lives, forgetting how it was to be young or remembering, but giving up hope.
As a young kid watching Peter Pan I didnt even consider what it would be like to join the never-neverland crew*, because I wanted to be older, I wanted to be a man. Now I would love to go there and stay 19 forever - old enough to have fun and young enough to. But as I write this, I feel this unmistakeable dark cloud of old age hovering over me. It informs me, my fantasy is just that, a young boys fantasy, and its time to grow out of it, not to shirk my duties as a mature adult but to accept them with a bent shoulder and adult mindset.
However I say to all those naysayers out there " screw you!" I'll live my life how I want, not how society wants me to. If that makes me juvenile or immature, then its its the worthwhile price for my youth, something I will never give up. I'll fight this war as long as I can, even if it means chasing the nurses in the home with my wheelchair and cane. And you'll always hear the battle cry " Remember the boy who tried to remain a boy" it will either end in " yup thats him over there wearing that ridiculous party hat running drunk down the street, giving the world the finger, singing the 'I wont grow up song." Or it will end in "yeah he works in that stuffy office, wearing a boring tie , married to a boring wife, and has a run-of-the mill boring life, well at least he tried." Only time will tell.
*nothing to do with MJ
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