Still Crazy After All These Years
Let’s unpack the past. I unexpectedly crossed paths with a person from my past. The chance encounter reminded me of a Paul Simon song:
I met my old lover on the street last night
They seemed so glad to see me, I just smiled
And we talked about some old times, and we drank ourselves some beers
Still crazy after all these years
The chemistry that first drew us together was still there. To break the tension, we joked about how crazy we would have made each other if we had stayed together. It softened the blow of regret for both of us.
He said he married someone who keeps him in line. I laughed. That was something I would never do.
I told him I took a good road in life. He quickly reminded me how that road took me away from him. The exchange left us wondering:
If we could go back in time to a specific crossroad in life, would we choose a different path?
Imagine a completely different life than the one you are living today.
Would you really trade your known life for the unknown?
Our younger selves would say YES!
We had met at a time when we were both crazy adventurous. We were thrill-seekers for the unknown and undiscovered. We were fearless. We believed whatever was around the next corner would be better than what we have today.
Not anymore. Today, we are both in our carefully planned lives with repeated patterns we are unwilling to change. We lost our adventurous souls in favor of predictability and security.
Go back in time? Not if it means losing what we have today. The answer for both of us was NO.
If we wouldn’t change the past or present, why did Chance bring us here together today? We don’t believe in coincidences. Why cross paths now?
This Chance encounter made us see we both needed more crazy in our lives. NO – not the crazy of married people having an affair. YES to the crazy of unplanned adventures.
Our Chance meet forced us to realize a hard truth: We weren’t still crazy after all these years. We lost that feeling – that lovin’ feeling of being spontaneous, adventurous, and wildly optimistic.
The Beauty of Boring wasn’t looking so great anymore. We simply don’t need any more routine business meetings and stagnant conversations.
We need a little more crazy.
My crazy is to hop a plane with nothing more than a backpack and a thirst for adventure. I’ll let you know what I find in my exploration of the unknown and unplanned.
His crazy is…well, that’s his story to tell. I don’t believe our paths will cross again. We fulfilled our role as the perfect messenger for our mutually adventurous souls.
We left with a smile knowing our Chance encounter with the past was an opportunity to create a better future.
Let’s unpack the past together. I didn’t plan to revisit and reclaim my adventurous spirit. Yet, here we are! Let’s grab a backpack and see what happens next.
