Blame It All On Being Older Now

A week ago, I was at the Registry renewing my driver’s license. Apparently, it expires after 5 years and an updated picture was required. She told me not to smile and the next minute a blinding flash painted the small room bright. My eyes re-focused on a monitor in front of me; on the left of which displayed my old picture and on the right, my recently taken one.

“You look exactly the same as you did 5 years ago!” She complimented.

“Just physically,” I corrected.

I’m a year older today and an article about my current thoughts seem fitting enough, so here goes. “If we’re not constantly growing, we’re dead,” said Lauryn Hill, as a response to those who claim that she’s changed since reaching superstar status. And ever since then, I’ve made a conscious effort to evolve, so to speak, as much and as often as I can. Indeed, that boy in the five year old driver license picture is not who you see in front of you now. And I can probably say the same about me, a year ago. Whether the changes are from tragedy or fortune, I find comfort in knowing that I’m slightly a different person because of them.

Could this comfort be a sense of maturity? Maybe. However, I have plenty of stories from this year alone that will reveal to you that I am far from it. But doesn’t maturity just creep up on you from time to time? I feel that my ability to accept the things that happen puts me on that stairwell to manhood. Perhaps, the greatest thing I’ve come to understand in life is how little control we have. Yeah, there are books out there that cheer us on to take control of our lives, and I’m not denying that we can, however, we can only control what we are able to control; which, like I said, is not much. And this statement is in no way meant to be negative. On the contrary, knowing that we don’t have much control allows us to choose our battles with the universe without regrets and to understand the motives of others.

In the pasting year of my life I’ve lived days on end out of a studio, written and record 9 songs alone in my room, chased an Edible Arrangement delivery van down a busy part of Jasper Avenue under a warm sunny afternoon, made out with a taken girl in the back seat of her car, been dumped thousands of kilometers from home, woke up in bed with blood all over my boxers, , went on a date with a girl that turned out to be a drug dealer, found a wound on my side that is still unexplained to this day and those are the things that I can remember. I’ve written countless articles and discovered many life changing songs, movies and books; been heartbroken too, but in the process, befriended many who were willing to lend some glue. So I guess I’ll conclude with the following.

People are naturally selfish and rightly so. The best we can ask for is that they have good intentions and respect for us. For example, she kissed me with the intent that the relationship would work out but she could not control the fact that she needed something different than what I was offering. Or, his intention was for us to grow up together and have beers on the patio we built but he couldn’t control the fact that he got cancer. Cause intentions are wishful thinking in a world where control is so scarce. People change; sometimes unintentionally and with those changes we find ourselves outcasts to their new lives. We hold so much against the people who let us down that we kill ourselves dwelling in it; the victims that we are. But are we? Had not for those changes, would this very article exist? In turn, would I, the man before you, exist? I won’t go as far as saying that things happen for a reason for the simple fact that I don’t want to get spiritual. So I’ll simply say that the world is alive and things will change. Let it.