Simpler times

Yesterday on my way home the host on the radio show I was listening to was playing a bunch of songs from the early 80’s.  It got me thinking about that time period of my life and how much simpler things were.  I remember the big focus was baseball and exactly how to turn my four door, six cylinder 69 Buick Special Deluxe into anything resembling a muscle car.  I remember cruising down the road with my newly installed Audiovox stereo system with killer Jensen 6×9 speakers sloppily cut into the rear seat deck blaring my Van Halen cassette tape.  Life seemed simple and clean.

I do recall thoughts about what adulthood could possibly hold for me.  At that point I still held out hope that a professional baseball career could allow me to bypass a conventional existence.  Of course instead I followed a much bumpier road after dropping out of the higher education system not once but twice, holding down jobs in a half dozen different professions, going through two failed marriages, and making more mistakes than I care to admit.

If I could somehow sit down with the version of myself from 1984 I wonder what sort of advice I could offer.  I wonder if the young version of myself would even have the sense to listen.  It seems like everyone has to bump into their own walls along the way.  Certain people just keep getting stuck in the same corner and never get out.  I have somehow managed to steer myself into the clear but have left a lot of dents in those walls along the way.

Still, I sometimes yearn for those days when the only real thing I was concerned with was the here and now, content to leave adult problems to the adults.