Change

Spare Some Change?

When I'm lyin' in my bed at night, I don't wanna grow up. Nothin' ever seems to turn out right. I don't wanna grow up.

I’ve got three stacks of pants in my closet. One stack reads 32/30. The next reads 34/30. And bringing up the fat rear is the stack boasting 36/30 (plus one single pair of 38/30’s just in case).

I’m currently digging into the 36’s.

As much as the tags on the back of each pair of pants represent the width of my girth, they also remind me of where I am or where I was in life - not our age, our phase.

I call them “phases” because like most phases, they disappear almost as quickly as we adopt them. I remember fondly my 32/30 phase, but I outgrew it. I was attempting to become a high school lacrosse star - I failed and moved on. I didn’t completely outgrow my 34/30 phase, because a lot of it kept getting interrupted by my 32/30 phase and my 36/30 phase depending on my beer intake and the number of comprehensive tests coming up.

Between getting a college degree and now, there have been many, many phases. Including, yes, Pickle Ball. That phase lasted a few months, and then, good readers, I OUTGREW IT. Let that phrase roll around for a while. It comes in pretty handy in this man’s existence, and in this man’s essay.

There are oceans upon oceans of baby clothes and teenage shoes floating around out there that smaller humans OUTGREW when they got just a little bit bigger. Then they OUTGREW the new ones within months!

Different styles (another word for phases) get outgrown: greaser, hippie, jock, cook, volunteer, gardener, etc.

I have hats that I’ve seemed to have outgrown. I’ve got a bowling ball that I’ve outgrown. Nicknames are great, especially when they fit a precise personality trait. But you hardly hear of many 64 year olds still being called Skank or Piggy.

Don’t worry, I won’t keep going with this (I think I’ve outgrown it). Plus I’m getting close to the growth I came to talk about.

‘I’ve typed, then deleted, then retyped this sentence several times because it’s hard to admit:

We even outgrow our closest friendships.

There. I’ve typed it and I’m standing by it.

Just think about divorces alone. Many of them are because two people who once said they loved each other simply grew apart. Grew into different people than they were five, ten, fifteen years before. It happened to me and my first wife. But that’s not exactly what I’m here to talk about either.

I’m 68 years old. I’d venture to guess that I’ve been making friends for about 64 of those years. Let’s just say I made two new friends each year of my life. According to Texas Instruments, that’d be 126 friends. But I haven’t kept up with all 126. Some moved away, some went to different schools, some became part of a persona that I couldn’t relate to and some? I have no idea what became of them. But I’m not talking about those folks either.

I’m talking about the friends we make who we’re really tight with - second brothers and sisters - marriages without the commitment. You may have met some as early as elementary school, some later. You hung together, caroused together, drank together, dated, laughed, wept and rejoiced together. You grew up together, and then? You grew apart together.

Oh, you still stay in touch. See each other on occasion. Exaggerate about the times you had. Try to act the way you used to when you were kids. But, at the end of the day, you climb back into your Jeep Grand Cherokee, hit cruise control and go home to - your life. And as much as that sounds sad, it isn’t! It’s joyous, it’s real, it’s the world we finally inhabit.

I should rewrite this entire piece and just make it autobiographical - all that stuff happened to me. I became best friends with about eight other boys - I call them boys because that’s what they were when we all met in elementary school.

Steven, Reggie, Tom, Francis, Benny, Bob, Gil and A.J.

(And, yes. The names have been changed to protect the guilty.)

We were very close for a very long time. We were a crew, we were a clique, we were a team. And then, we were not. Like most old friends, the pressures, joys and just circumstances of adult life keep us from seeing each other as often. We’re no longer hanging out, we’re hanging laundry. I’m no longer cruisin’ with a six pack, I’m cruising with six boys to soccer practice. But it’s not just less time spent together. Along the journey, priorities shift. Opinions flop. Tastes morph. The truth is, I’ve outgrown those guys. And I do not mean I’m better than they are. Far, far from it. I’m just a different person now - and so are they.

The good news is, you make new friends. The kind of friends you swore you’d never have - lawyers, teachers, insurance salesmen, cops even. Adults! And they turn out to be your new best friends - because you’re an adult, too!  Meeting with these friends is refreshing - you can be whomever you’ve become. There’s no prior personality traits to shift back into. You can leave your old person (and personality) behind and enjoy being who you are now!

I think that’s one reason why folks hate high school reunions - they’re a bit uncomfortable because “I’m not that person anymore, Skank! That person existed 50 years ago, Piggy!”  So you’ve got to go back, pry that trunk open and pull out at least one or two remnants of the old you. It’s fine for about fifteen minutes, but four hours? My 50^th is coming up and I’m looking for a crowbar to open my trunk.

What’s the point of this piece?

Like most of my writing, there hardly IS a point. Except to say this, if only to myself:

It’s okay. It’s natural.

Growth is change. Change is growth.