I wrote a song once, when I was about 17 or 18. Pretty sure it was just before my 18th birthday - I know I was a senior in high school, barrelling towards graduation, which seemed so daunting at the time. In your youth, you're kind of hurtled towards this goal - the end of high school, in which your adult life is supposed to start after. When you get older, you realize it's just one step into a great big world that you never really ever complete growing in... but I was feeling the arrow of time at that tender young age, and feeling much older than I actually was. The song was contemplative - written as someone looking back on their life, and things they hadn't done. Thinking about how I was musing on that at 17/18 is amusing now, but the song had a lot of yearning in it. I think once I started hurtling towards adulthood, I became obsessed with it. Now, people might call it "FOMO"... fear of missing out. I just wanted to live a life of quality.
So, I wrote this song 26 years ago, as a kid, and I found myself playing it again. It is quite weird to be a person who has written things like songs, and had many decades pass since I did so. But my fingers found the frets, and I found the words of a 17 year old boy who wanted more from life... I was a kid, writing as a sad old man, and it's so funny how now here I am, a sad old man, and it's like I wrote this song for the future me who needed the reminder that you can look back, yearn for more, but still miss things along the way. I may have been a really stupid kid at times, but I think there was always a bit of wisdom lurking inside of me, and I've been fortunate enough to meet so many amazing people who added to my collective knowledge over the years. Life has given me many great teachers, and put great people in my path who have really given my life the gravitas and meaning I have always longed for. I am forever grateful to those who have shared their time with me, and imparted their lessons, wisdom, wit and love. I hope I've managed to do that for some people along my way, too, because life is all about what you share with others you meet.
I think I'm going to record a version of this song again soon here - it's a time in my life where it probably fits me better. But I'm lucky to have left gems like this in my past, I suppose. Reminds me that I have lived a life less ordinary, and I am glad for it.
