What Would You Do If I Sang Outta Tune?

I felt the need to follow up with this Wonder Years post, due to the comments that were left to me, and I just don't have the juice to write something to follow up the first piece I've written in a while that I feel is rich with detail and possibility.

I've been feeling pretty nostalgic lately.

It's a few things: the changing of the seasons, for one. A cold front swept through Minnesota, and while usually we get some warm, even hot, days here in the fall, it feels like things have just Changed, with barely a warning.

On my way home from work the other day, I drove through the campus where I attended college, and drove past the dorm I lived in freshman year. There was a "Welcome Home" sign in the yard, and although I have no desire to repeat my freshman year of college--full as it was of angst, hatred for my roommate, and undiagnosed thyroid disease symptoms (although there were fun moments, too, don't get me wrong)--I felt sad. That isn't my home. Hasn't been for quite some time now. I wouldn't fit in, even if I wanted to. I still miss college.

I had a pretty sweet childhood. I ran around outside, not just with my neighbors, but with other friends, who lived two blocks away (we're still the closest of pals). I could ride my bike wherever I wanted, climb up into the trees at the park and read my books, lace on my skates and cruise around on the ice in the winter. I never felt scared or confined in the town I grew up in.

My parents were cool parents. They rarely imposed much ruling on me—mostly because I think I was so straight-laced as it was—but they also allowed me to develop my own interests. Never was a book banned, a piece of music tossed out, or a hobby laughed at (at least to my face). My parents and family let me be me. And I am so grateful to this day for it.

I know everyone looks back at their childhood—at least people who had good ones—with the lens that polishes everything to a golden sheen. But I do feel that my peers grew up the last of a certain generation. After old-school Nintendo faded out and Sega invaded, life became different. The world wide web snared everyone and their homes. Everything is virtual, more accessible, and it seems, more obscene. (Doesn't every generation think so?) A lot of kids aren't kids anymore. Ever. I rarely see kids out running wild. One, because it's too scary most places, and two, because they prefer the high score to the high of riding your bike down the steepest hill in your city. Kids are lured by posers online, whereas we were trained to just look out for the stranger with a lollipop.

My last post made me a little sad, too. I think of myself, almost frozen in time. A little sad that's all done and gone. There are definitely days or weeks where I'd love to travel back and just be 5, 8, 10, 12.

But then I think...if I were able to time travel, I'd tell Katie D., age 10:
Don't worry, but don't hurry. It gets harder, but it also gets really good.