Serially Lost

Writing 101 Day 4: Serially Lost
Today’s Prompt: Write about a loss: something (or someone) that was part of your life, and isn’t any more.
Today’s twist: Make today’s post the first in a three-post series.

People don’t like talking about age. As if by keeping mum about it, you stop from getting older. I look young for my age, well, I think so and most people agree. When they ask me how old I am, for my amusement I usually say, “Guess.” And they would be surprised to find out I’m already 30 and is not in my early 20s or something.

Age is a state of mind. That’s what I thought. When I used to be younger. When I used to be livelier, more energetic. More “seize the day” kind of guy. But I lost that somehow. Is this a natural stage of growing up?

Freedom. Exuberance. Naiveté. These are what separate the youth from those who have stepped up the ladder of so-called maturity and adulthood. They usually prance along amidst the bees and the flowers – carefree and seemingly oblivious to what’s happening around them.

Eventually, anything they came to believe about everything, their hopes and dreams, are shattered. Forget about idealism. This is the bitter reality of life. The world is cruel. It couldn’t care less about how you feel, about the things that are important to you.

That’s how the world operates – take it or leave it. If you go against it, you might as well consider yourself a rebel. You fight for change, you cry reform. But your lack of voice will be drowned in the sea of discouragement.

I know that growing up can’t be that miserable. It is when we stop playing, when we stop appreciating simple joys, when we stop challenging ourselves and taking risks – life becomes boring… then we grow old.

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