Kodachrome

Last night Mags was going through some old boxes while I was in the kitchen doing dishes. Suddenly she called out, “Who is this?” Not quite sure what she had found, I asked her to bring whatever it was to me. She walked into the kitchen with an old photograph in her hand. I looked down at it and got transported back through time.

There was a younger, trimmer me staring back out of the photo. It was a picture of me from 1989, dressed in cammies, my arms crossed in front of my chest, trying my best to look like the NCO I knew I was about to become. In an instant, I flashed back to that day, saw Tommie holding the camera, asking me to pose for him.

Two years later, Tommie was dead, killed in the deserts of Iraq, and I had left the Corps, unable to handle what had happened, and unable to control the drinking that came so close to killing me. But on that day, in May of 1989, I was in control of the world. Cocky, self-assured, and so certain that nothing could ever touch me and that I would be young and strong forever.

They say inside every senior citizen is an eighteen-year-old wondering what happened. Although I am far from geezer status, I still was shocked by just how young I looked. There was a part of me that wished I could go back, just for long enough to warn the ’89 me of what was coming, and caution him against some of the choices he was about to make. Although I know that everything that I have gone through was necessary for me to be who I am today, (I was a real jerk back then,) I sometimes wish I could have learned the lessons I needed to in a less painful way.

I’ll have to see if I can’t scan and upload that photo. It’s a real trip down memory lane.