I told Tamara earlier today that I wanted to get some writing done so after the kids went to bed, I sat at the table and did a little writing. Mind you, it wasn’t the kind of writing she had in mind as it was a song we had talked about earlier that I was working on. But after she went to sleep, I hauled myself out to the office and started my real writing. I was trying to get the last paragraphs of my 4 Guys book done so I could put that draft in the can and start on a new one soon.
After finishing that work, I started digging through some photos on my computer and stumbled upon something really old.
Back in my software piracy days, I used to burn CDs filled with software apps me and my friends had downloaded off countless IRC channels and FTP sites. When I would have enough stuff to fill a 650MB CD, I’d burn the disc and label it “Slime …” with a number. I believe I got up to Slime 32 or 33 at some point. I don’t really know what spawned the name “Slime” for a bunch of old software CDs but knowing me, I probably picked it for the sheer absurdity of it if anything.
A few months back, I started cleaning out my office and still had the CD wallet full of those old Slime discs and started going through each of them to see what was on them. None of the software on any of those discs would run on a modern PC, but there were a few that had some surprises on them. Any disc that had anything useful on it I copied the contents to a folder on my desktop called Slime and then chucked the CD.
When I first went through the CDs I was filled with a lot of nostalgia as I kept uncovering things I had long forgotten about. Old work projects, old software apps that I had written when I was bored, but the biggest surprise came in the form of old photographs. There were a ton of photos from things I hadn’t seen or heard of in years and so I smiled as I flipped through some of them.
Then tonite as I was digging for an old logo I had used back in the 90s, I found the same photos folder but took a closer look at it only to discover there were photos in there that I didn’t even know I had.
In my first marriage, my then-wife Jennifer had an old school Kodak digital camera that took great photos at the time, but now look incredibly dated. When we split up in 2002, she took all the albums and digital photos we had and I never had a chance to make any copies. So for me, there was this window of time where I know that a handful of photos existed that I had no access to. In digging through my old Slime CDs, I found a few of them.
There were pictures of me in NYC from 1999 along with some photos from Atlantic City and a bunch of other pictures which had been scanned and forgotten about. I’m seeing one photo of me and her in the Statue of Liberty crown that I had pretty much forgotten about. There were some shots of old friends from parties and other excursions that had completely been forgotten about and all of sudden there they were.
Going through these old photos I realized how much time had actually passed. For the pictures from the Jenn era (my ex), it was circa 1999/2000. Many of the other photos were from early to mid-1990s.
In perusing through these old pictures, I realized how much time had actually passed and how ancient it seems those times were. It was 20 years ago this year I got married for the first time. It’s 25+ years since my underground music and mullet days. How is it that I can look at some of these pictures and just instantaneously transport myself back in time to an era that feels just like yesterday.
Tamara has said previously that time always appears to be distorted in that when you think back to any event or anything from your past, it always feels like it just happened not that long ago. Yet when you count the years and really look at the passage of time, you suddenly realize how far back it really was.
Every time I open an old photograph or hear an old song that reminds me of something from my youth, it brings both a smile to my face and a little bit of sadness to my heart. God knows I wouldn’t give up what I have now in life, but there are times when you look back and life seemed so much simpler.
But more importantly, you think back on all of the people from your life at that time. Of all the people I knew and associated with back at that time in my life, there are very few that are still an active part of my life now. Most of them have moved to other cities, provinces, or maybe even countries. A few of them have died and I miss dearly. Thankfully, there are a few here and there that I still talk to and associate with but it’s nowhere near like it was at one time.
As I get older and think about how my own kids are growing up, I see the world very differently and find myself wanting to tell them the same things I was told as a young man. Enjoy the moments you have because before you know it, life changes.
