Growing Pains

 Some of my closest High School friends got together at a small restaurant in the next town to catch up. Some showed up in brand new shiny cars, others in that same clunker from high school, and still some of us still asked for a ride. It had been almost two years since I had seen some of them, but we picked up right where we left off: the same jokes, the same grudges. It was great.

We talked about what we had been up to all that time: new relationships, broken relationships, failed classes, changes in majors, and new-found bacchanalian inclinations. I ate one of the biggest burgers in my life, and after a group picture we headed back to one of our houses. Parking was not found easily, the overgrown shiny cars did not fit in the little driveway. Inside they joked at how they all were within months of being fully recognized as adults and I was still years away . . .

I left rather early, and later went to my old high school on assignment from the local paper ($30 don't hurt) and saw how much it had changed. An old building demolished, open spaces and fields now held buildings, and the students all looked like, well, children.

Weird.

Later that night, my brother and sister and I shared some stories of old. We went on for a couple of hours, and all I could think of was man, when I'm old, I'm gonna be one of those old people that don't shut up.