Things I don’t do anymore

this whole embracing facebook thing i’m doing now has resulted in some interesting insights.   in the past few days,  i’ve reconnected with about thirty friends from my past.   it’s been pretty cool.   many of them are friends from the 70’s and 80’s.

i was having a conversation today,  and the topic turned to a guy who had just turned 100…and how amazing it would be to have heard this guy’s thoughts about life back in the early 1900’s.   how incredibly different it must have been back near the turn of that century…and this guy was there.

here’s a head explosion:   if i live to be 100,  i will get to have conversations with people in 2054 about what it was like back in the 70’s and 80’s…something that most people will only know about from old photographs in shoe boxes or scratchy looking vhs tapes that had been burned to dvd’s…that had been enhanced by two or three new forms of technology over the decades.   wow.

anyway,  a few facebook dialogues (along with a little loitering on some photo pages)  have left me to reminisce about life back then.   they are great memories.   this may sound a little weird to you,  but i started thinking about things i don’t do anymore…things that were a normal part of the way i lived my life back in the day,  but have gone the way of my beloved sony walkman.

hear are four of them.   i’ll give you more some other time…

i no longer blow dry my hair – in fact,  i no longer wash it,  comb it,  trim it,  or look at it in the mirror.   “bic”-ing my head back in the summer of 1997,  happened in a moment of sheer,  unplanned genius.   over the past 14 years,  i have saved more time,  money,  and empty vanity than i could ever calculate.   honestly,  i don’t understand why more guys don’t go this route.

i no longer tuck my shirts in – this one goes hand in hand with a slightly greater girth and the comfort of wearing my jeans lower on my waist.   trust me,  wanda has told me more than once to pull my pants up!   untucked shirts create better ventilation,  much greater freedom of movement,  and the ability to let my pants sag a little.   is  this a great thing,  or what?

i can’t eat spicy food late at night – one of the major disappointments of getting more seasoned.   the joys of packing away a macho combo burrito or an entire pepperoni,  sausage,  and jalapeno pizza at midnight with a bunch of friends is nothing more than a distant whiff of my imagination.

i no longer think i’m part of a church heritage that is more “right”  than the others – i grew up in a church system that laid a foundation that carried deep into my early marriage and ministry life…a way of thinking that gave rise to  smug judgmentalism and narrow skepticism when it came to interacting with people from other church groups.   my first interactions were never ones of healthy dialogue or loving relationship-building.   rather,  my conversations with people were filled with stealthy questions that would expose their “true” church identities.   needless to say,  i spent a lot of years of my life missing out on the pure joy of sharing honest kingdom building with people whose discipleship was a different flavor than mine.    so glad i don’t do that anymore.

how about you?   what are some things you don’t do anymore,  now that you are growing older?

this is probably not the right forum to air your past dirty laundry.   just sayin’…

#age #growingup #past