How Did We Get Here?

I know you.

I’m sitting in this shitty restaurant and the kids are killing me.  The food sucks, the waitress is a bitch and I can’t believe I’m going to spend $65.50 on this experience. Then I see you a few booths away going through the same thing. And you have ketchup all over what you think is a cool sweatshirt. It was cool a decade ago. You’re wrestling your kids too — and now pleading with them to eat while your wife is head-down texting God knows who.

Our eyes meet.  Desperation. Exhaustion. Humility. With a whisper of confusion.

We’re thinking the same thing: How the hell did we get here?

Then it hits me. I recognize you from the Alice in Chains ¹ show at the Central Tavern in 1990. You spilled a Jager shot down my shirt, but I didn’t care. None of us did. It doesn’t seem that long ago, but in reality it’s a lifetime ago.

Seemed like only yesterday you went sailing by as we passed you on our hands while you “crowd-surfed” your way to the stage. And yes, that was me who took off your shoe and threw it at the burnout who thought he was better than the rest of us because he heard Mother Love Bone first.

Frustration aside, neither of us would change a thing — we love those little monsters, but it seems like it just happened too quick. Then I catch my reflection  in the smudged restaurant window and realize that it really hasn’t been that quick. We’ve just been too busy.

And while the worrying and sleepless nights  may have taken a few years off our lives, those little brats added life in our years.

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Tagged as: Getting Older