Remembering When, A Short Tale of Frustration

Today I completed an assignment that required me to write a letter to myself in five years time. I have done similar things in the past, and generally I think this exercise is slightly ridiculous. I started to write the letter to myself in my usually sarcastic humor, begging my future self not to be fat. A wish that I truly do share, although I realize this is not a life shattering revelation.
Side note: how do thirty some year olds let themselves get fat?
Nevertheless, towards the end of the letter I wrote something that I have often thought about, but never really thought to articulate. I begged my future self to stop bitching and moaning. I know this will happen because I've lived with myself for 22 years. What I expect will happen is that I will get the letter in the mail and say.... oh golly, how swell for me, I was young, and blunt, and those were the "good ole days"

Good ole days? Really? Does Good ole Days really transfer into: days of poverty, exhaustion, sleeplessness, hunger, anxiety... and so on an so forth- the emotions that I associate with college.

Yet, surely I will do that... I know for a fact that in five, ten, or twenty years from now, I will be thinking, "Oh, when I was revolutionizing my worldview, what a fiery lad I was". Okay, I will use not of that particular language.

But seriously, I'm slightly bewildered by this. Why don't I see these things now? Retrospect is such a comfort, and rightfully so, as I don't want to look back at my college years and have a panic attack. Yet, at the same time, when do I give myself the pleasure of actually being happy in the moment. I refuse to believe that this moment is going to magically happen when I walk across a stage for a diploma. That's just bull. There will always be that next step that I'm working towards, the next anxiety... exams will be replaced with getting a job, getting a good grade will be replaced with getting a promotion. Boo! I want to be happy in the moment too!

Okay, so be happy then, right? I think this is a great concept, and then I look at people who live for instant gratification and realize that is not a life I want to live either. Instant gratification seems to turn into utter ruin when selfishness and gluttony seem to take over. Where is the balance to this? I want to look back at my life and be proud of my accomplishments, but I also want to look at my life currently and see that same "future glimmer".

I look back at childhood, which of course looks like a cake walk now. I look back at adolescence, which seems so diluted. I think: "wow, that was easy"

Reality check: it was not always easy. Not at the time at least. No victim here, just trying to have perspective.

Yet, what if I could live today, and look at the moments I'm currently living, and think those same thought, instead of saying "those where the days", I would live to say "today's the day"... (oh man, an unintentional segue into a B.B. motto).

This entry is tacky upon tacky. I will post it before I reread it and delete it.