End of the innocence...

I have often wondered if I were to do some things over again in my life, what that possible outcome would be. Maybe if I picked a different college to attend or even a different major and how that might have swayed my life one way or the other.

Most of these fantasies are really only around one particular decision or event. My mind just can't grasp the whole implications of what that future really would have been like if that decision would have been made differently. And, of course, most of these fantasies revolve around elaborate theories of a particular circumstance whose result I dealing with now and maybe, just maybe, with a different call so many years ago things would be much better today.

I think back to my own coming of age - growing up in a small town in Eastern Oregon where most people knew everyone else and getting away with much was difficult - especially when most people in town knew your parents. I didn't know it then, but so much of my early life was sheltered. It was safe - I could ride my bike all over town (and did). I would even walk a couple of miles after school to stay with our caretaker before my mom and dad got off work. All of this as a 6 year old.

My friends and I would hang out in deserted lots and explore random aspects of our city. Crawling through the framework of a house being built or walking through a field of wheat. The life I had as child allowed for a large safety net without exposure to many of the random evils that chip away at a purist vision of what the world was like.

Then as puberty struck and topics in school and life became more complicated - the exposure to the other "possibilities" of a life not yet fulfilled with that first grand vision of what was waiting for you once you "grew up". And the race to drink from that cup became an obsession. The overwhelming desire to experience what was "out there".

Even in a small town, choices could be made at an early age. I remember the first time I took a drink of beer (I hated it!) or smoked a cigarette (hated it too) or really kissed a girl (that, was pretty good - but gawd, I was awful!). I did manage to stay away from drugs although some of my friends didn't. I was a product of a very conservative family and was in constant conflict of what I would "like" to do and what I was "supposed" to do.

As those milestones in my life were ticked off, the preceding feelings of wondering what it would be like once that particular event happened to it actually happening left a pretty big void without much fanfare. Life had moved on and no matter how much I had tried to guess at what I would feel like post accomplishment, I never came close. Usually just left with confused feelings and the fact that it was now gone from my list of things I thought I wanted. It's the aftermath that is the real bear and sometimes are felt for a really long, long time.

What I didn't realize at the time was I was cashing in my innocence one event at a time. Fortunately for me, I didn't have a traumatic event (or series of events) that caused great pain that forever changed me in an instant - but my transformation was a very slow one - one that usually left me feeling that I was somehow behind the curve - no matter what had happened to me before. So some key events fell in reckless behavior under the guise of wanting to be like everyone else.

I think about that race to lose my innocence and how I suppose most people blow through that most valuable of currencies with such reckless abandon that when the dust finally settles and you find yourself bankrupt, it is at that point when the true value of that innocence was realized and how it can never be returned. Guilt can sometimes be overwhelming.

I think about it a lot since I became a father. Of trying to somehow moderate how much exposure my daughter and son have over their lifetimes without withholding too much or overexposing them. I can see why so many people complain about TV when it's harder to edit content (other than we can choose to turn it off). My desire to have them be well prepared for life on their own along with not being damaged along the way. The fear of failing those that you love the most.

I can also look back and take most of it in and know that even with elaborate fantasies of a different choice made that by any variation would take me from where I am today. My wife and children would be taken away from me by a change any place along the way and that is completely unacceptable. And that for all of the good and poor choices along the way of the spending of my own innocence that all of it culminates in my own being right here and right now. In the end, it's just a record of my life with every event shaping who I am.

I like to say that we spend the first few years of our lives trying to lose our innocence and the rest of our days trying to get it back. Like the proverbial Genie in a Bottle. But then, without those experiences, where would any of us be?