If I could live a time in my life again...

It would my the summer after I graduated High School, 1988. I was driving into work this morning and heard Def Lepords “Pour Some Sugar on Me”. Now, if you were a teenager in 1988 you know this song. They played it all dang summer. Everytime I hear it, I go back to that time;

It was a great summer. I was young, healthy, full head of hair, and the world was before me. The summer started out with the ritualistic, Senior Beach Week in O.C. Maryland. This was the first time in my life I was truly “on my own”. No parents, no expectations, nothing. My friend and I were in OC for not even an hour before we picked up this HOT 21yr old hitchiking. For our genorsity she happily bought us alchol that should have lasted us all week, but only lasted a few days.

The days in OC were spent on the beach, flirting, laughing, playing games. It all seemed so…so…surreal in a way. The nights were nothing but walking down the boardwalk from one party to another. I had no les

After I got back from the beach, I went to work at our local drug store. Some of the best times I had were with the group of friends I had there. After the store would close we would hang out, talk, play flashlight tag, just hang out.

On the weekends my girlfriend, a lifeguard, and I would just hang out. We spent days just lounging at the pool, talking about life and the future with our HS friends (it was the only pool in town). After work sometimes I would sneak over to my GF’s house, and knock on her bedroom window. She would sneak out, and we would spend hours doing, well, what teenagers in “love” would do.

The world was laid out before me, and nothing was impossible. College was around the corner, but it was an abstract thing to me. Life was today, now. Bills, rent, family, all things in the “future”.

My best friend would come over almost every night, late. He would throw rocks at my window till I would come out. We would drive around and just chat for hours. Him about his latest “soul mate”. Me about work, and my current “soul mate”. We would hit the all night dinner, get an early breakfast, and play video games.
To be able to sit on a lounge chair, by a pool, a warm breeze and light sun brushing over me. To discuss for hours about the importance of why Jill left Jack, and how Jack got drunk over it, then made Jill cry. To wonder why the Ice Cream truck was late, and where is he anyhow? To talk about how to beat that last level for “Rastan”. To worry that my car is dirty, but yet I just dont have time to wash it! Those were the days.
p.s. dont get me wrong…I have a great life, better than I ever thought I would. But to be young and carefree again, even for a summer…/sigh

The last few years before I met the woman I’d marry. Not a reflection on her, just the debauched lifestyle I was living - guilt free and without consequence or a care in the world.

Let’s see, that was the period I:

  • Went on an ex’s honeymoon with her when her fiance bolted the week before the wedding, and she decided “oh fuck it, I’m taking the trip”. Met her at a bar crying into her beer, listened to her story, then suggested we take the trip. Kissed goodbye at O’Hare after we returned and I haven’t seen nor spoken with her since.
  • Dated a succession of women, most of them between 5-10 years older than me (my early 20’s), a percentage that I’m not proud to admit were married.
  • Had a bitchin’ nice fast car.
  • Still had the knees to play softball 2-3 times a week year round.
  • Ingested all of the substances now known to be toxic to man and beast.
  • Visited England, Germany (for the second time), Spain, and most of the Carribean. Drove the Rockies with two friends in a beat-up station wagon, camping and living off the land (Anyone else humming “Me and You and a Dog Named Boo”?).
  • Impulsively decided to go off for weekends to hockey or baseball games at every stadium and rink within a 6-7 hour drive of Chicago.
  • Woke up in the bedroom of a girl I was dating to hear her younger sister in the next bed ahem, amusing herself with a toy. Said to my date, “um, what’s going on there?” Date replied that sis gets lonely since she broke up with her boyfriend and suggested I go keep her company while the date goes downstairs to make breakfast. I ended up staying there for the rest of the weekend and most of Monday.

That whole period, just living like I didn’t have a care in the world, and I didn’t. And looming over my head always the thought that this can’t possibly last, that someday I had to make an honest soul of myself.