Falling in love again

When I was a kid, you couldn’t pull me off my bike. I would do everything on my bicycle!  I’d even take my PBJ outside with me, just to eat it while sitting on my bike. When I wasn’t riding my bike, I was saving money to keep it going. Buying patches and new tubes, collecting tires and rims that others would throw out and restoring them in case I needed to use them later. I had so many bike parts, I actually built a second bike. It was a little “Frankensteined” together; back tire was higher than the front, it had a banana seat, but it worked and could do pull some sick jumps. Then I learned to drive a car and I stopped riding bikes.

I used to collect baseball cards and comic books!  We would run to the drugstore on Saturday mornings after the newest editions of comics would come out and try to continue our collection in numeral order.  It would drive us nuts to have copies of 3, 4 and 6 and not have the missing piece of the collection. We would then have to travel to several stores in order to lock down number 5. When we started missing too many in order, we’d move on to another series. To this day, I don’t know the ending of many of my favorite comic book storylines.
 

We preferred Topps baseball cards, not because of the gum, but because they were better than most. Yet, you could buy 4 packs of Fleer for one dollar, but only 3 packs of Topps. 7-11 stories carried Fleer, so we would try to work in a Slurpee to share from the change mom gave us from her purse. The other card companies came out and they had great looking cards, but they were too expensive for us kids. Then I learned that I would have to pay for college, so I stopped collecting comic books and baseball cards. We promised my mom that one day we would make millions off of them, but we never sold a one. With both my brothers passing, I ended up with all of our collections and they are currently residing in an upstairs closet in my house. Don’t know if I will ever sell them now and I guess mom will never see her millions.
 

I used to play golf. My friend Joe and I made sure that we played at least 9 holes of golf every week and we did this for years. Every Saturday, we’d get up and find a cheap course to play on and then try to knock out 9 holes in an hour.  In some ways it was our workout for the day and in other ways it was therapy. Then I had kids.  I couldn’t dream of leaving my wife and kids at home while I went and played a game on Saturday morning, so golf was replaced by jump castle parties and swim practice.
 

The things that are important to you today will change tomorrow. Your “line in the sand” moments, your beliefs, your opinions and the things you collect are all subject to change as time and life change and erode the absolutes in your current chapter. You can do the same thing for 20 years and then one day have it taken away or you decide to turn your back and move onto something else. It doesn’t make the time you had with it less special, nor does it say you’ve completely outgrown it. Sometimes life just tells you that it’s time for something else to occupy that space. I own a bike so I can ride with my kids, I still own all the cards and comics and my golf clubs are in the garage. Anytime I need to scratch that itch, I can always go back to them. Once it’s a part of your life, it will always be there in the form of memories or abilities. You never forget how to ride a bike, but as you get older, the sweet jumps might not be the same and you may not be as daring.
 

#Tryharder to have the confidence that you will find other loves in life. Think of how many times you have moved on from the passions of your past. From relationships to beanie babies to previous careers, you have moved onto something different and fresh. New interests will always fill the space of old. Only you define you and we should never be confined or pushed into a space because of a phase that occurred at some point in our lives. Don’t let others hold you to that space or push you into believing that you are only as unique as you were yesterday.
 

Life’s too short to not fall in love with new things or fill those empty spaces with new passions.

 

chasemradio

Radio Imagineer and host. Texan, Blogger, Author, Father of 2 awesome kids, husband to Christal and driver of a 1965 Chevy truck. Author of Pull The Trigger and #Tryharder.

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