A wasted youth is better than a wise old age
April 10, 2004
First off, Happy Birthday to my good friend Zenith. This one�s for you.
So last night I went out with my friend (of over a decade! Just realized that last night) Meeni. We watched Ferris Bueller�s Day Off at Adam�s place and hung out for a bit, and then headed over to another part of town to play cards with some girlfriends at a coffee shop. Overall, not a bad time, especially as I hadn�t been out with friends in a while, I love all John Hughes movies, and I had a really, really good cappuccino. But, as often happens with Meeni, the best part of the evening was the ride home. Meeni and I have a tradition of taking these sort of meandering drives through Cairo listening to music and waxing philosophical. In her car I�ve discovered the best of all sorts of music � from Pink Floyd to Buddha Bar. So yesterday, on the way to my place, Meeni popped in an old mix tape (mix tapes! Ha!) from middle school, and we rocked out to Meatloaf�s �Wasted Youth.� Honestly, I didn�t remember the song, which appalled Meeni, but I was definitely into it by the time she dropped me home. The lyrics are pretty simple and Meeni just turned it up to full volume and we did a sort of bobbing heads, muppet dance while singing at the top of our lungs. I�m sure we looked really odd/ really �loose� and �wild� to the conservative, passing traffic, but it was really so much fun.
The main lyrics in the chorus are �a wasted youth is better than a wise old age,� and apparently those words struck the same chord in me and Meeni, because we ended up chatting online later on about how we both wish we�d wasted our youth a little more. We talked about the boys in high school we would have gotten with (Duncan Miller, if you�re out there, you�re first on our list), about the serious partying and drugs we would have liked to do (though Meeni did get to do a little more of that than I did), even about the kind of clothes we would have liked to wear (or, at least be able to fit into. heh). It�s not that we didn�t have a little fun when we were in high school, but I know personally that I didn�t let go as much as I could have, as much as I wanted to. It�s funny because my mother is always so worried that her kids will look back and have regrets, and therefore encourages us to work hard, to �stay close to God� (one of mother�s key phrases), and to always think ahead. But the thing I find myself regretting most is that I never really acted my age. I was always responsible and to an extent a bit wiser, and definitely way more inhibited. I was in London a couple months ago and I met up with some friends from high school who had really �lived it up� back in the day and they just seemed really together now. And it all made sense to me somehow. They�d had their fun, when they were young and stupid which is how it should be. Then when it was time to grow up and get it together and figure out what to do with their lives they did it, and they seem happy.
So that�s that, and here I am wishing I�d wasted my youth a little more, and definitely NOT looking forward to the comforts of a wise old age. *sigh*
�Everything louder than everything else��