Nothing compares to you

I've recently been trying to contact some of my old school classmates, mostly without success. I'm not really sure what drove me to do it: It’s not as if I had a particularly pleasant experience while I was there. In the end, I think that maybe I’m attempting to recapture some of the wonder of innocence that I felt when I was younger.

Mostly I remember my teens and early twenties as years where the future had promise, and there was so much waiting to be explored. Now that I'm older, I’m finding that I have indeed experienced many of the things I was waiting for, and while they were wonderful, they weren’t nearly as terrific as I’d imagined them to be.

Is it possible that wanting a thing too much for too long can spoil the experience when it arrives? A vivid imagination can convince one that an experience will be earth shattering. Then, when it finally arrives, no matter how wonderful it is, it cannot live up to expectations.

Even worse is the loss of firsts. I love Mags dearly, but kissing her today can’t measure up to the first time I kissed her. It’s like a fire that has died down from a roaring blaze to embers. It still gives warmth and comfort, but a part of me can’t help but yearn for those leaping flames.

It’s been quite a while since I found a book that I just couldn’t put down. I get some pleasure from revisiting old stories, yet nothing can compare to that feeling of just one more page until suddenly it’s dawn outside and you realize that you haven’t yet been to sleep.

Maybe the trick is in the title of a song that was popular when I was young: “I do not want what I cannot have.”