The Second Time

I watch her. She sees me, but she has no idea what I think of her. She is young. She comes to work where we meet. Then she runs along, gallivanting around with her nineteen-year-old friends. They have such fun together, I can tell.

I watch her, not so much because I like her, but because I think she's cool. I envy her youth, even as I watch her light up with a child-like energy upon seeing her friends arrive.

As a mate, she would be too young. I wouldn't want that. Things wouldn't work. I know that. It would just be nice if she would notice me and think of me as someone other than some middle-aged dad-figure.

Sure, I confess; I've had my fleeting fantasies of groping her flat chest and small nipples as I caress her young and slightly boyish-looking face, but I go no further. Any more than that would creep me out. All I'm really hoping for in the end is a little flattery, I guess.

Getting old, it's not as though you never have fun anymore. It's just that everyone else who is having the real fun doesn't even notice you and has nothing in common with you. Those who are still in the prime of their glory days, still making their to-be-cherished memories just aren't lined up to appreciate their secret admirers.

When I am seen in public, it's not as though I'm ugly, not at all. I'm just not noticed. I'm just another middle-aged guy, a part of the repeating scenery in the insignificant background of a cheaply animated Hanna-Barbera cartoon. I'm like the “whah, whahs” when the parents are talking in a Charlie Brown episode.

To not be wanted is one thing. That's fine because then you just find another person or crowd that seeks to identify with you and you with them. To be hated is one thing; to be mocked is one and the same; but to not be noticed is where it really hurts. To connect with someone and have that person not connect back is one of the more painful elements of life's plaguing discords. Think about how not connecting made most of our school years so tough.

The search for belonging, that is the wearisome part of the journey of life. It's the alienation that gets to you, being shunned, feeling like you're traveling alone.

Sure, people see you traveling down your way, but seldom do any of them want to stop to let you know that they understand. I swear that if someone – anyone – ever walked up to me anywhere and with a somber look told me, “I understand,” I would probably collapse in tears of joy.

It's not that you mind traveling alone. You just don't want to feel like being alone is your only alternative, and sometimes you need someone on the same wavelength whose shoulder you can cry on. How much harder life is without such a one?

When you spend time around those formidably older or younger than you often enough, it's almost like you're existing on different plains of reality. Life is so different. Perceptions are so different. Words can't carry the right meanings and the weight of a cosmic dissonance is never heavier.

That makes you reflect away from relating to others to relating to yourself. It's scary – horrifying in fact – to think of yourself as someone else, and it's as scary to ask yourself if anyone can ever truly relate to another human being.

None of us ever feel like we truly fit a particular mold. It takes someone else's eye to size-up how we really are. And that should make us ask ourselves, are we all living personal lies? Are we each pursuing paths of unavoidable self-deceit?

Can we ever truly know ourselves? If we can, then why do our perceptions of ourselves in the eyes of others so differ (from our own and from each other's understanding), and why do we ever doubt our own self-images? If not, then how do we have any value at all apart from what others think of us?

Are the kids right? Are we not justified caring, obsessing about what others think of us, like tearful teenagers and their incurable craze for styles, fashion, and fitting in?

I used to think that if I could start life over as a kid again and use the wisdom and knowledge acquired over my lifetime to live out a better life the second time around, that I would and that it would be a phenomenal success. I’d go back and be the coolest, the toughest, and "with it" guy out there. But over the years, I find myself doubting that conviction. I seriously doubt things would be that easy.

You see, as we grow and age, we lose the ability to stay in touch with the passionate struggles of youth. We don't gain wisdom to deal with life – not really – we just lose the encounters that force us to have to deal with what drove us up a wall as kids. We forget as much or more than we learn as we grow.

We don't have to face bullies anymore. The maturity level of the people we fight with is higher. Our struggles aren't the same. A child can't relate to the struggles of the adult world, but the adults have forgotten how to relate to the struggles of their youth. We're less patient, less tolerant, and we're done with trying to fit in.

We've already found what works for us. If forced to face those old jarring challenges again, we'd fair a lot worse than we did the first time around when we had stamina and optimism and big dreams to keep us going through the heartbreaks and the pain.

This is a sad testament to the ravagings of life and age and what a callusing maturity does to us, but just try and deny it. You can’t.

It's so easy for me to boast about wisdom now and to school some poor 24-year-old college sophomore in a philosophy or religion debate and think well of myself afterwards. I can wax eloquent and impress my peers. I can use big words and make them colorful. I can weave together stirring sentences and cut to the chase in making arguments. I’ve done it and I’m bored with it.

I can spin sophistication to the delight of my peers, but I couldn't get on a school bus and be a kid again to save my life. The challenges and pressures would have me running for mom all over again. It seemed too much the first time, but it certainly would be the second time.

I say, screw second times. Forget second chances. I don’t believe in them. The first time was all I needed. I don’t have energy for a second time. I might succeed in enjoying my life from this point onward, or I might not. Either way, I’m going to do what pleases me. I’m going to have fun here and now. There will be no do-overs, no second attempts, not if I can help it.

I used to think I was weird in admiring junkyards the way some do art museums and things of conventional beauty, but I no longer find it weird. There is beauty in conventional things and in success, but there is also beauty in failure. The beauty is that you gave it your all and you weren’t disillusioned with regrets and patch-up work when you did it.

The first time was just fine.

(JH)