Lost In Time

I saw this recent article about Willow Smith, the nine year old with the hot new song. To say I had zero surprise this was the offspring of uber celebrities Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith would be an understatement. Celebrity children tend to follow their parents into the family business. But it bothered me that she is doing it at such a young age.

I kept thinking as I read the article, what kind of childhood is this for a little girl? She should be playing with Barbie dolls, not laying down vocal tracks. She shouldn’t be doing the talk show circuit, but playing dress up with friends. Where are all the moments she’ll remember fondly when she has kids of her own, like tea parties or story time, getting to stay up late for the first time or even sleeping in? Her memories will be of celebrity parties, and she’ll have to stay up late and stories will be about sleazy agents and demanding record companies. That’s no way for a child to grow up.

But the more I thought about it, the more I reminded myself that everyone has different experiences in life, and those experiences make us unique and interesting to others. And since she is growing up in a very different environment than I did, perhaps this is normal for her. Normal, after all, is a very relative term when it comes to life experiences.

But as I pondered how different life experiences shape us, and started mentally strolling through some of mine, I hit upon a stunning revelation, at least for me. The article did not have an impact on me because I had a real issue regarding her supposed lost childhood. It struck me because I found myself missing my own.

The thoughts of childhood and those fumbling teenage years brought back many a warm memory. Sure, more than a few embarrassing, awkward or sad ones filtered in as well. But mostly I felt myself feeling warm and happy, reliving past joys, fun experiences and laughing at myself through the panes of time as I saw the fumbling mistakes only one of youth and inexperience can make.

And as I reveled in those warm memories, something dawned on me. I finally began to understand why and how people get stuck in the past. It’s not that they do not like, or understand, society as it stands today. But rather the things of the past, such as music, television, movies, technology or a variety of other things act as physical markers in time to help transport them back to times filled with innocence, joy, discovery and happiness before the realities of the world dulled everything.

As an example, growing up I could never understand why my parents loved to listen to just, well what was considered at the time, oldies music. Now mind you, thanks to their love of classic rock and roll and pop, I developed a great taste for those tunes, and a better appreciation of all kinds of different musical genres. But to just listen to that music seemed odd to me. In my opinion, there were all kinds of good music coming out every day, and many other great songs, artists and albums that came out long after the music of their choice. I chalked it up to them just being stuck in the past, and I vowed to never let that happen to me.

But my realization showed me my parents weren’t stuck in the past, well maybe a little bit, and it’s not that they did not like any current music. But that music was part of their formative years as young adults. It helped convey them to a time in their lives they felt strongly about, and made them feel good. It is a marker to memories of their lives.

I know, how it took me this many years to figure out such a simple truth to the human experience is beyond me as well. But perhaps I just needed to gain some knowledge and wisdom of having a few years under my own belt for it to truly dawn on me. To have other markers transport me back as well and realize I am doing the same thing I vowed never to do.

Now, mind you I still listen to some current music. But not with anything approaching the voracity I once did. And more often than not, I tend to gravitate toward songs and artists that I once had high on the play lists of my youth or ones nowadays that remind me of favorites from the past. And if truth be told, I do not listen to music everyday like I once did. I love my Ipod, but I mostly use it when I’m doing outdoor lawn grooming.

And see, that statement sums it up. I fully embrace modern society but still cherish and relish those past markers that mean so much to me. Often I wish I had an Ipod when I listened to music constantly. But instead I had a string of Walkmans, ever present on my person. When I recently heard Sony is no longer making the product, I felt a bit nostalgic and sad. Thinking of Walkmans made me think of running to class in college, tunes blasting loud enough to shake loose mortar, or rocking out doing homework in high school during a break from my fast food job. It was a marker in time for me, and clearly brought into focus memories from my past.

As people get older they do not eschew current fads, trends, music and the latest and greatest because they do not like it. They do it because time is no longer a luxury. Commitments, responsibilities, career and family take the place of those once dearly held things. And no matter how good a song is, or how moving a movie may be, none will have the same emotional impact upon you as one that you heard or saw during that fresh time in your life when you were first discovering the world and growing up. It’s why we hold those things dear, and how we get “stuck in the past.”

Like most people today, I enjoy the modern conveniences our world has to offer. I love being able to check the weather, read email and look up information on the fly all from my Smartphone. And how amazing is it to watch anything on an HD television, with such clarity of picture and graphics and animation one never thought possible? But I miss the simple pleasure of tuning into one of the three big stations early in the morning, huddling around to see if I would get a free snow day as the crude graphics scrolled on the bottom of the screen or hanging around the kitchen to talk to friends on the wall mounted rotary phone. Ha, it was a big deal when we got a button phone, now my phone is a touch screen. Although, I have found that I am not the only one with a nostalgic feeling toward telephones, or with a love for modern technology.

As technology, and the world at large, moves forward and bigger and more fantastical things come into our lives, more of what was once so important to me and I held dear moves further into the past. This is not a mind blowing revelation, as it has happened to every creature that has walked the earth since the dawn of time. But for me, now I understand better why people hold onto the past.

There is comfort there, things make a little more sense, you see the mistakes you once made and the triumphs that made you feel on top of the world. Who you once were is there, young, idealistic and hopeful. It’s sweet and innocent and tinted just the right shade of rose so everything looks fantastic.

Perhaps the approaching holidays make me nostalgic, or perhaps I’m just a bit tired of fighting just to get by. But I wouldn’t mind spending a few days back when all I had to worry about is whether my galoshes would survive another sledding season, and not that I need to take the trash out before going to work.