I had a call from an old friend the other day, sort of out of the blue. I hadn’t talked to him in several years and we don’t really associate much these days.

Years ago we would spend time trying to beat one another to death with broomsticks, also known as swords, while protecting ourselves with steel pots and firewood holders (helms and shields, if you will).

In a way, it was nice to hear from him, the fellow who was always there to try and bash my skull in on weekends. I remember the six-year-old kid in a batman costume who is frozen in time in a photograph I found tucked inside one of my books. Beside him is his little sister, so thin that she looks malnourished.

After that, we were both in the rock band musician phase, complete with rebellious attitudes and deafening noise that somehow qualified as music at the time. I don’t even listen much anymore, my angst is long past. Perhaps I have found new ways to express my dissatisfaction with the world.

When you think about it, children are the most likely to have angst with good reason. They can’t vote or even make their own schedules, they have no voice on where they will live or what they will eat, they have no money or power, no possessions that can’t be taken away from them on the whim of an adult and they are forced to attend an institution daily that they often feel unable to connect with. What adult, other than a prisoner, can say they have a worse situation? Then why do so many of us relish the thoughts of childhood with such vigor?

My memories of childhood pals and the pictures of the people they later become don’t seem to line up well. I’m somewhat envious of the folks who keep their childhood friends all their lives, who’s old acquaintances are not soon forgotten.

However, when I saw my friend, balding with a beer belly and more than a few wrinkles, the thought of him in a Batman costume was more than a little scary. How could this be the same person?

In thinking that, the inevitable thought came to mind, that creepy feeling that causes a pit to form in your stomach. If he’s getting older, then I’m getting older. If he looks worse, then I look worse. It struck home then, I have become my parents and they have become their parents. That means I really am mortal and I really am going to die.

After a certain point in life, the bulletproof fearlessness of youth passes slowly into that good night of soft dreams of a mis-spent youth and the harsh reality of the frailty of our bodies and the fragility of life itself hits home like a hammer. I never felt that blow to the stomach more forcefully than as I talked with my old friend that day. I don’t know why, but if I were one to cry, I might have. As one who ascribes to the philosophy of Stoicism, I pride myself on emotional control. Emotions are illogical and cause rational thought to suffer, but try telling that to my knotted stomach.

Anyway, the pretty little girls of the classes I once attended with much reticence are near-middle-aged mothers of four with graying hair and wrinkle cream in their shopping carts. I sometimes spot them in the store, but sometimes they spot me and I don’t even recognize them. I sometimes follow along, waiting for some identification that will save me the embarrassment of admitting I don’t know who they are.

I hardly listened to him as my mind raced back in time, the thought of the day he shot a bird from a power line outside the house came to mind. He tried in vain to bring it back to life, but it crumpled and died in front of our eyes and he cried and ran home with bird blood on his hands. I also remembered how he joined the military and had his long locks shaved off in an instant and more or less disappeared.

As we talked, he touched on his problems transferring his retirement contributions, his love affair with a woman who recently became a grandmother and his plans to move back ‘out west’ after a brief stay here.

I listened patiently, hoping for something that made me feel like the same kid who spent much of his time bashing friends with broomsticks, but he’s also long gone. While that’s not all bad, I do miss him sometimes. As my mind drifted back, I realized that on the phone was a man that I hardly knew telling me the fates of people that I hadn’t thought of in years. Most have suffered or are suffering the effects of poor choices. I then felt a little guilty for being so blessed. I don’t have any major health problems, my finances are meager but sound and I enjoy the support of a loving family. I can fish whenever I want to and

I still have enough mind left to find my way home after work most of the time.

Anyway, I suppose reeling in all those years gave me the life equivalent of vertigo.

In my opinion, life is like climbing a big ladder into the clouds: you don’t really know how high you’ve gotten until you really take a hard look back to the place from whence you came. We don’t really know what it will look like at the top until we get there.

The only part about the ladder I don’t like is the fact that you can never climb back down.

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