Last night I realized that half-my-life ago I was an undergrad in college. I am now twice-my-then age attending overgrad school. This pseudo-epiphany hit me as I was working out in the rec center after class. I rarely feel old, even with the big 4-0 smiling at me in waiting repose from the month of May.
But being in the gym with everyone else half my age, I tend to feel old. Last night was different; I felt good, energized, and comfortable in my surroundings. And I shouldn't have felt that way at all. I arrived late for class from a tutoring job after work and just as I was far enough away from my car to go back and get the umbrella, yet still too far from the building trying to rescue me, the rain gods dumped a huge bucket of water over my head in a practical joke.
To make matters worse, I had to assure my professor I had completed my tutoring tour of duty on Thursdays and would no longer be late to her class, while the a/c began to claim my skull in an icy death grip.
To make matters worser, I was so out of it driving the short distance from the parking garage to the gym, I didn't realize I was doing it spy-style, without my headlights on. The campus police are good, and of good character. The officer graciously informed me that without my secret agent badge and decoder ring, I would have to drive with my lights on from now on.
To make matters even more worser, they got just plain worsest; I forgot to bring my ID to the gym. (Yes these are actual words, in a dictionary I just made up....If my ancestor King James (Stuart) can have his own Bible (The King James Bible), I can have my own dictionary. These are the rules that I also just made up ;-)
I think it was after producing verification that I was myself (thanks Lauren, you're kool) the universe decided I had earned the golden "Lord of the Rings" ring, and when I put it on I was sent back 20 years to a time when "these were the best years of my life".
As I worked out I realized, that just like in the Underworld (college), I had made friends and even a best-friend-for-life out of my classmates here in the Overland (grad school). And just as my professors saw potential in me when I was but a wee-wizard lad, my professors today see greatness in me as a budding super special sorcerer.
Before taking off the ring and giving it back to some guy named Gollum, I had one last vision of a time half my life ago. I remember lying down watching an ant crawl up a blade of grass, and then back down. Then it crawled up another, then another and another. I continued watching the ant do this until the sun was directly above my head....and then I had an epiphany.......I've got to stop drinking before noon.
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