The Pain of Growing Old

I was in Central Oregon this past weekend for my brother's bachelor party (the big day is June 25th). It's amazing to me how much different bachelor parties have become as all of us have aged. Most of the group from this weekend also happened to be at Dustin's bachelor party about 5 years ago, where things were much more out of hand, including Dustin tackling a tree in the front yard and falling over my car later on (his face was ripped to shreds 2 days before his wedding; needless to say, his wife was not happy with any of us).

This weekend began with a poorly played round of golf that ended early (let's go, I'm too drunk to play...). We then headed over to Dustin's for BBQ, beer, and poker. As we sat around, we BSed of years passed and of the all the wild things we used to do. It struck me strange that a bunch of men in their mid and late 20's at a bachelor party were spending their time talking about their crazy antics rather than making new ones. Was it fondness in which we looked back on all the wild times, or did we look at it as "how could we be so stupid"? I honestly could not tell.

It often scares me when confronted with my fading childhood. B makes fun of my age and does claim on many occasions that I am acting immature, but perhaps it's because I'm so deperately trying to cling on to a youth that is no longer there. The hardest transition to adulthood for me as been accepting that I am no longer a kid, as much as I wish I was. As I drank my beer and became sleepy at the early hour of 11pm, I wondered if the best has come and gone, or is it yet to come?

It reminds me of an episode of Friends in which Chandler and Ross get so excited about their friend Gandolf coming to town so they can "paaarty, whoo!" But they soon find that that's not what they want to do; they'd rather kick it in the coffee shop and talk with the rest of the friends. It's like me: I hate going to Taylor's and other bars where the music is too loud and I can't talk with anybody. I'd much rather kick it at a chill place conversing with people. Of course, I'd much rather talk about the now, as opposed to this weekend where we talked a lot about the past. It just depresses me. That's a chapter in my life I can't experience again and I'd rather not dwell on it. Instead, I want to write new chapters with new experiences with my friends, with B, with my future family. Hopefully, I end up with one hell of a great book, not one where the first part was good, but then it got lame after the first few chapters.