Is All The Good Stuff Over?

I never wanted to be one of those who think their best days are behind them, but as I age, I think I’m becoming one of them.

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” ~John F. Kennedy

Many people favor the past over the present. My father was one of those people. He was a World War II veteran, having served in the Navy in the Pacific Theater. The war was horrific, but to him, they were the best days of his life. I wonder if he would have thought the same thing if he had been fighting in Europe.

He didn’t just love it; he romanticized about it his entire life. Sure, he had some close calls. But they were overshadowed by the times on leave in Hawaii. He treasured his medals. And the Glenn Miller Orchestra made music he listened to until the end.

In his thoughts, his best days were behind him. This always made me feel like kak. (That’s shit in South African slang.) I thought the best days in a person’s life should be filled with and around one’s kids, being in their present and shaping their future.

But I always felt like I couldn’t compete with “The Big One.”

Many younger people are choosing not to have kids but to have experiences. After all, you have much more money for experiences without kids than with them. They’re not looking to the future through another pair of eyes. We may see that as selfish, but they see it as self-preservation.

Now that I am 66, I wonder: Are my best days over, or are they yet to come?

Is the glass half full or half empty? It’s optimism vs. pessimism.

“Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” ~William Jennings Bryan

Dad didn’t like much of anything new. Take music, for example. Anything using an electric guitar was classified as “noise.” He was about thirty when the rock and roll era began (around 1955), and he wanted no part of it — only music that harkened him back to the good old days. Even singers as benign as Dionne Warwick or Diana Ross were “no good.” The Andrews Sisters were where it was at.

My equivalent to The Big One was probably being in college. I spent five years in undergrad and one year in grad school. I had the best job a college kid could have at the daily student newspaper. I made good money, too (of course, I was in advertising, not the writing side!). But I don’t necessarily count those as the best days.

Save for the occasional bullying, I liked my high school experience. After college, I dropped out and moved to Santa Fe, where I met up with many other drifters, all of us not knowing what to do next. Those were some halcyon days.

I can’t say my marriage was all fun and games, but I loved having kids. The best parts were when I would be alone with them — no mom around — and we’d talk about things kids talked about. Importantly, we shared music, which was a bonding experience. Was I a bad parent as we turned up the volume in the car and sang along with, “Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover?”

Unfortunately, I divorced when the kids were nine and eleven, but I got the best years.

Coming out in 1998 — being who I am — has been exhilarating and an out-of-body experience. There have been innumerable trials and tribulations. But your brain processes pain and emotional upsets over time to not make them seem so bad. Not remembering pain is how many have survived in this world, which is a gift. How could you move forward otherwise? To live in constant fear of that pain.

My breakup in 2018 was awful. Just awful. That pain lasted for years. It can’t be compared to physical pain — it’s that pain in the heart. The voices that keep saying, “You fucked up.” Five years on, I now remember the good parts, and there were plenty of them. It wasn’t all about that dreadful day when he broke up with me.

“If you’re not changing, you’re not growing; you’re not being present. Change is essential.” ~Maggie Rogers

Like most, the future is cloudy. I have always suffered from wanderlust, and thank goodness I’ve been able to travel extensively. However, I got spoiled by always flying in the front of the plane, patronizing the lounges, and staying in four- and five-star hotels. I’ll never be able to do that again, so it takes some of the allure out of future international travel. But I maintain my Global Entry and TSA Pre-Check, just in case!

Domestically? Well, I’ve learned to love road trips. Packing up your car is much more fun than preparing for the airport. You can take practically every luxury with you. I camp in a tent on my road trips. That, to me, is fun. That is an experience.

I’m afraid there are not enough years to do everything I want. Take road trips, for instance. I’ve probably got a five-year backlog of trips I’d like to take. Will I have the time, the money, and the health to do them all? Knock on wood, my health is good, but I don’t do anything to earn it. It’s the luck of the genes. When am I going to learn to take proper care of myself?

Living and staying in the present is hard for me to do at this point. I’ve spent a lot of money I didn’t have over the years on experiences, and now I am paying for them. On top of that, I was just laid off from my part-time job, so my recovery from all the spending will take even longer. Words of wisdom — pay off your credit cards before you retire.

Time is not on my side, and I am still having setbacks. It’s challenging to be in the moment when you know what tomorrow’s ramifications will be.

Do memories of the past sustain us for our futures? Will happy days be here again? In this day and age, how are we supposed to believe that?

Today, I have to focus on sustenance. This is not one of the best times of my life, and the future looks grim. The next few years will be lean unless I can somehow manage my debt or make more money.

I don’t have a war to look back on and be sentimental about. But I do remember the fear of being drafted for the Vietnam War. If I were my sister, I might have had to go.

I’ve had a good and interesting life. However, looking back on it, there is plenty I’d change. I didn’t write my future well. But now that I am a writer, maybe that will be my salvation.

More from Arthur Small in Illumination

Author’s Note: I have a 290-plus story back catalog of articles dealing with subjects I like to write about, and there’s a piece of me in each one. I hope you’ll find something that piques your interest. Subjects include aviation, music, geography, gardening, pop culture, LGBTQ culture, The Colorado River, The Southwest, the Megadrought, and my late son. It’s worth $5/month or $50/year to read stories from all the great writers on Medium.com. Consider it like your own feature magazine!