i recently caught up with some old friends on facebook. they’re friends from back in a time when we were living 5 to a flat (8 with significant others) in brooklyn, new york. early twenties, finishing university, working, partying, creating art, paying bills, owning pets, getting married. we we so certain that we had arrived as adults. no one could tell us any different.

we drifted, as young friends do. life takes you down divergent paths and you wind up places you never could have expected – as much as folk try to warn you that *you too* are fallible, you never believe it will happen to you. there is a certainty and hardheadedness that comes with that age, a kind of protective bravado that sweeps you along in its inexorable current.

inevitably, of course, things change. relationships crumble. you make costly mistakes borne of inexperience. jobs dead-end, distances grow and friendships fade. if your early twenties are all about bravado, your mid-twenties are about learning the painful lessons that come when the shield of invincibility falls away.

and here we find ourselves now, more than ten years since last speaking. most settled, with ties to homes and families and careers. solidly mid-thirties and heading upward – a little thicker in the middle, a lot more staid. it’s humbling to see just how human we all turned out to be, how very ordinary. in those heady years, we passionately believed we would be the ones to set the world on fire. bright, young and blazing – how could we not?

but for all the days that have passed since then, as much we’ve left behind, i can’t help but feel we’ve gained more than we lost. for along with the extra padding on our bones, we’ve gained experience, and with the healthy sprinkling of grey hairs, comes stability and perspective. our certainty is that of wisdom, our settling that of maturity. looking back, i think we’re all much happier now than we could have ever hoped to be back then.

our younger selves would have derided the us of today, would have sneered at this post.

but what the hell did they know anyway?

peter bjorn and john – young folks

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