I got up at 3am this morning to get ready for our trip. Our plane was set to take off and 6:15, and the roads were likely to be slick on the way to the airport.
The car had some trouble getting started. After the dash finally illuminated, I understood why: It was -3° out. (This temperature decreased to a chilly -16°F out at DIA... record lows, from what I've been told.) My first thought was, "Ah, what an excellent introduction to negative numbers for kids!" But I read a post about the situation in Kyrgyzstan and, well, it's a tad disheartening.
We ended up missing our connecting flight because three of the four crew members were late to our 6:15 flight. ...really late. Thankfully we were able to get on another flight that only put us back two hours.
Only.
Even so, we made it in plenty of time for Brittany's little sister's senior art show. It was odd to walk the campus of our Alma Mater and see how things have change and what has not. This is where we met and fell in love, and yet it's a different place. I must be getting old because the college students seem so young.
And we started talking about how things--such as technology--have changed: There was no YouTube, JumpDrives didn't exist, and Instant Messaging was all the rage. DVDs were still coming onto the scene. Cell phones were not ubiquitous.
It wasn't even four years ago and yet... and yet it was so long ago.
It would be even longer if we had kids.
Nostalgia kicks in--a sweet sorrow of something we have lost; "The good old college days" before we were hit with adult responsibility; the lifestyle of spending time with people; and my stomach even knotted a bit as the pressure of finals saturated me once again.
And just as the cold kept creeping across the landscape this morning, so the cold of age drifts over me. But I'm not really all that old, no matter what feelings hanging around my peers of yesteryear inspires.
So today was all about feeling old. Tomorrow, I suspect, I may feel young as we go and visit Brittany's grandmother.
~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father
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