The World Has Turned

If Future Me came to Present Me on February17, 2005 and told Present Me (who is Present Me 2010, if you follow Me) that the people that I know that are getting married would be getting married and the people that are splitting up are splitting up and the people that are having children would be having children, well, I'd think that Present Me had to lay off the booze because Future Me is obviously feeling the effects.

I'm not sure what to make of all this, really, except that life is pretty unpredictable. That's not good enough, though. I'm a pragmatist. I need to ponder why things happen. I need to over-analyze things and then apply them to my own life, even though they seemingly have nothing to do with me, apart from slightly altering the schedule of who I go drinking with. Before you judge, however, let me just say that if I did not apply other people's situations to my own life, I would really have nothing to talk or think about, other than comics. See, nothing really happens in my life.

...

I may have hit upon the problem.

Maybe I'm just getting to that age where shit starts to hit the fan (although I really thought I was well past that point.) Maybe I was too stubborn to see that while I was preaching my version of the good life, everyone else was thinking about the future. I was too busy having a good time and doing the stuff that most people do in their 20's. Future Me didn't exist back then. Even in the most remote corner of my brain.

I'm not saying I've been wrong all these years, or that I'm jealous of my friends getting married or having children (especially the ones having children. I'm still pretty firm on that one.), but perhaps a thought or two about Future Me wouldn't have been the worst idea ever. I'm not turning over a new leaf or anything, but sometimes a man does a little thinking, sitting in his one-bedroom apartment, after yet another grilled-cheese-and-Dorito dinner, with no money and nothing to spend it on, anyway. And he wonders if maybe, just maybe, the outlook could use a little tweaking.