Embracing the Past

I’ve often heard myself described as fearful of change.

I’ll never forget my first day of high school, and the yearning I felt to not be there and return to my grammar school (which was really no picnic, but it was home for eight years). I stayed home for college when a good many of my contemporaries shook the dust off this crummy little town for the debauched mania of living away from home.

Were it not for a horrific break-up with my girlfriend I would’ve held my part-time high school job (in a public library) for 20 years. As it stands, I worked there for seven years, left after the breakup, and followed it (after she left of course) with my current stint of nine years and counting. When I (finally) began my professional career I stayed five years at my first job, and I’ve been in my current position for more than eight (an eternity in today’s job climate).

I’ve mentioned this before, but my first girlfriend once harangued me about quitting a part-time job my mother arranged for me after only one day, only to retreat back to the safe confines of the library. “Are you planning to stay there forever?” she asked with an air of disgust. Define forever….

Outwardly, I’m not very nostalgic. I’ve worked very hard on a caustic persona that is heavy on the blunt trauma of “telling like it is.” I suppose on the days when I’m being burned in effigy by my friends they say I’m too sarcastic, too biting and a bit of a know-it-all. I get that.

However, there’s another side that I let creep out every so often – one that reeks of nostalgia and sentiment, and everything I suppress during my everyday life. It usually rises to the fore in moments of significance – moments of extreme joy or sadness, or separation. I hate expressing myself verbally in these moments because I’m afraid of what I might say, so I tend to use the written word instead.

I’ve written much this year of how I have been inundated with memories of an earlier time, when life started to get “interesting.” Writing about those days has been very cathartic, and helped me regain my focus on the present.

I’ve always felt a very strong connection to my past, and it’s been increasingly important for me to keep close the people who have been with me 10-20-30 years. Staying in touch, even if the face of not actually seeing them, has become a paramount consideration. Beyond their good company they are a tangible connection to my youth and our shared experiences make the past real.

Some people are better than others at staying in touch, and that’s cool, but I don’t think anyone would argue the merits of clinging to those who know us the longest. There is a subset of folks out there who would probably call me a total hypocrite if they read this because I bailed on a close group of friends from college for reasons too long to go into here, but let me just acknowledge that fact were I to be “google-stalked” by any one of them.

This may sound nuts but I spend a lot of time “in my past,” going over it, analyzing it, wondering how things might be different if I turned right instead of left. They aren’t recriminations or regrets, only musings. And yes, I do consider people out there in the world who I no longer communicate with.

I certainly don’t find fault with people who find it easy to shake loose the bonds of their roots, to live in other places, to meet an array of new people. That takes courage and I respect it. But for me, everything I always needed could be found within a 30-mile radius of the hospital where I was born.

I wonder what that says about me. Does it imply I’m a coward? Or, does it simply mean my desires are simple – that my happiness is rooted somewhat in embracing my past, and the long-standing relationships woven throughout the tapestry of my life?

What I do know is that I’ve felt a contented spirit throughout most of my life. I certainly ponder “what if’s,” but I’ve never had this gnawing feeling that something was inherently missing. Sure, I may’ve felt something was missing when I wanted to start dating and the girls weren’t knocking down my door, but that’s not what I mean.

Familiar surroundings have always comforted me, and familiar people, even more so. I’m at a time in my life that traditionally, for males, is the “mid-life crisis” point. Sometimes, I do feel I may not have accomplished as much as I should have, but I think that has more to do with a lack of motivation than anything else, and not a feeling that I “missed the boat.”

So what if I spent 20 years in a library? On its face, that sounds kind of sad. It’s not as though I didn’t do anything else. I grew up (sort of), got married, established myself professionally, but that tie in my life has evolved into something so profound that its eventual end disturbs me greatly.

I often see my life through the lens of my time at the library. It’s the one constant in a sea of change. There was a time when I stayed there to hide from the world, but to limit its scope to that one end hardly tells the story. I’ve written pages and pages about my time there but my (obtuse) point is to address how my past and present intersect there.

At times I bemoan the fact that I’m almost 40 - that time has gone by in the blink of an eye – that, in my mind, I feel no more an adult than I did when I was 22. Most of the time, I feel an overwhelming sense of comfort from my time there and it’s emblematic of how I’ve lived my life. Not everyone may agree – I know one or two people who would strongly disagree – but it’s worked for me over the years, and I doubt I’ll ever change.

It’s always been so hard for me to let go of the familiar, especially when more often than not that object or person is a force for good in my life. I’ve been pleasantly surprised over the years at how certain changes haven’t been as horrific as I anticipated, and the most growth I experienced usually came from traumatic change, but all I’m saying is continuity, longevity and familiarity has never bred contempt for me.