Thanks for the Memories

I’ve been thinking a whole lot lately about how fast time passes. Except for a few very minor aches and pains I feel the same as I did when I was in my twenties—which I’m very grateful for. My spirit and body don’t feel middle-aged but that reflection staring back at me is starting to tell a different story.

My age really hits home when I sit back and think about the decades of experiences and friendships I have under my belt. People really do tend to come into your life for a season. When I was younger I took for granted that the people in my circle would stay there for the rest of my life. Sadly, few have, and I think it’s an unfortunate byproduct of our modern world.

We move. We hustle. We burn countless hours making our plans and scrolling. We get preoccupied. We focus on our careers. Sometimes throughout all that we forget to live. We forget to breathe. We get sidetracked and forget to appreciate those around us. We take for granted that this will all go on forever. The sad truth is there is a hard stop. Many of them actually.

There are many people from my past that I think about—when I do I think about them exactly as they were. These people exist in a kind of stasis, frozen in time. The last few years I’ve thought a lot about some of the people I’ve worked with in decades past. When I reminisce, an old friend I worked with at The Limited often comes to mind.

I met Scott months after I graduated high school when I started working for The Limited in Columbus in 1989. We worked together for a few years before I moved on to a different Limited division. We hung out after work. Went to happy hours, played pool, attended house parties, discussed life, hopes, dreams, women, music, politics.

Scott was a lot of fun, funny, and as you can tell from the photo below looked a whole lot like Howie Mandel—before he lost his hair. He was a character. We’d prank each other. I used to give him rides to and from work when his car broke down. We'd tell each other the worst jokes. Political Correctness hadn't quite been born yet. He’d often come to work hungover and would seek out hiding places in the distribution center to catch a short nap.

I was shocked to find I had a picture of Scott on my camera roll. I haven't a clue how I got that picture or who took it.

Scott was a man way before his time, very anti-tech, so it didn’t surprise me when I could never find him online. As a matter of fact I would have been shocked if did find any online footprint at all.

Just the other day I was talking with my Mom and we were reminiscing about some of the people we worked with (she worked at The Limited too) and Scott came up. On a whim I decided to look him up again and, this time, unfortunately I found his obituary.

I thought about how strange it was that when we worked together it felt like he was decades older than me. I was shocked to learn Scott was just five years older, but I guess that seems like ions when you’re still a teenager. I had just turned 18 when we met.

That was such a different time. Life was slower, in many ways more real. There were no cell phones. You could still smoke in public places. People didn't use the internet. We trusted the government, the media, institutions. We had most of our lives ahead of us but we didn't yet realize that. We were just living, day-to-day, trying to figure things out as we went along.

Just a few years after that photo was taken I moved to Minnesota and Scott and I lost touch forever. That's a weird thought. Such a hard-stop. The river of life and of time just kept on flowing and the distance became too vast.

I'd like to say this was a lesson for me but I doubt it. Life has a way of sweeping us away from those people we were once friends with. We all have the best of intentions...but. We evolve, we change, often in different directions. The chaos and crescendos of life happen. Sometimes the distance just becomes too vast. Most people really are with us for a season but we can still be grateful for the memories.

I've learned this is nothing to feel anger or guilt about. There's no one to blame. It's a part of life. It's taken me a long while to learn to make peace with this. It doesn't mean we appreciated those people any less, or they us. I feel like if anyone understood that it would have been Scott. Still I wonder what kind of life he ended up having. Hopefully he found some happiness and some peace along the way. In the end that's really all any of us can ask for isn't it? Rest easy, my friend, and thanks so much for the memories.

All for now. Make this a wonderful day.