Reflection

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I started a blow-by-blow blog of our wonderful trip to Marco Island some time ago, but school has started and I've just not finished it. I was also going to write a blog talking about my first go at teaching. But I got news this morning that has stopped me in my tracks - Suzy Musson, a girl I knew in high school, passed away.

I've lost other high school friends before. One died in a horrific motorcycle accident and another succumbed to AIDS. Oddly, this death hits me a lot harder. It's not that I was closer to Suzy than I was to the others. I wasn't. We were in the same grade and in band together. She was fun to be around and we got along great within that band circle. But we weren't friends beyond it. So, I think Suzy's death impacts me more because the others died when we were still fairly young. Their deaths were a tragic rarity in the halcyon days of youth. I'm now middle-aged (a phrase I have difficulty describing myself with, I admit), so when a former classmate passes now it's bigger. It's still tragic and sad, but, alas, less rare. And it will only become less rare as time marches on. A death happening within my old high school circle now is just a big, fat reminder that I'm not all that young, anymore, and at least half my life is now behind me. What a sobering thought.

Of course, most of the time I feel like I'm just starting life. I'm in school and I'm thinking about careers. Sure, I own my home and I've been married ten years, but life still seems like it should be fresh and new and ready to be harnassed. It's always a bit of a let down when I have think that if I were to go for a PhD, I'd be 50 before I finished it.

I like being in my little fantasy world where I'm not middle aged and where the world is still my oyster. I can do without my mortality being shoved in my face.

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