Halfway between 15 and 45

One day you wake up and you're 30 and reality comes flooding in from nowhere.

And I mean--nowhere.

You have mortgage payments and insurance bills and a 401K with a company match.  Will your tires make it through the winter?  You work in a cubicle; you have a corporate American Express card with no limit. You have a Masters degree which means that people expect you to be a Master of something.  Are you getting enough calcium?  What is enough calcium exactly?  In 5 years and 4 months you will be 35.  The age when childbearing becomes riskier.  In 15 years and 4 months you will be 45.  15 years ago you were 15 and the thing that concerned you more than anything was whether or not the boy who sits next to you in math class had any interest in you beyond your understanding of the term "as the crow flies" as it relates to elementary geometry.  You wonder what happened to him.  He used to wear a red Champion sweatshirt and a tiny diamond stud earring in whichever ear meant you weren't gay.  You are halfway between 15 and 45.  Halfway between "will these awkward years never end" and "holy shit, where did all of these fine lines around my eyes come from?"

Halfway in between 15 and 45 is a strange place to be.  In the airport of your life you stopped walking on the solid marble tile and hopped onto the moving sidewalks.  Why is everything going so fast?

So you put in REM Automatic for the People which you owned on tape when you were 15.  You listen to the words for the hundredth time but also the first time.  You remember sitting by the window of your house on Mayapple Lane in the beginning of October when you first heard it all the way through.  Those dinky little poplar trees were sprouting orange leaves in the same way you, at 30, are now noticing those sneaky little lines around your eyes when you're tired.  You skip through track 4, "Everybody Hurts".  When you're halfway between 15 and 45, life has taught you plenty that everybody hurts sometimes and you don't need Michael Stipe to remind you anymore.  Eventually you land on track 11, "Nightswimming" which was always your favorite. 

The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago, turned around backwards so the windshield shows, every street light reveals the picture in reverse, still it's so much clearer...

When you were 15 you liked that lyric because you always said when you have a car someday, you'll put pictures on your dashboard.  When you're halfway between 15 and 45 the lyric means something so much more.  You begin to picture memories as that car driving under a million streetlights reflecting what once was.  But everything is in reverse, you're looking backwards.  At 30, the world is pushing and pulling you forward, always forward.  All of those questions that came flooding earlier are keeping you from remembering what was important~poplar trees and dual cassette decks and early autumn.  At 15, it was fine that winter was on the way, you didn't have tires to worry about surviving on the icy streets of Ivywood Estates.

The last song on the CD is "Find the River", which was one you always skipped...

Me, my thoughts are flower strewn, ocean storm, bayberry moon.  I have got to leave to find my way, watch the road and memorize this life that pass before my eyes...

Halfway between 15 and 45, life does seem to pass before your eyes.  It's never that way when you’re 15, life crawls at a snail's pace.  How things have changed.

There’s no one left to take the lead, but I tell you and you can see, we’re closer now than light years to go.  Pick up here and chase the ride, the river empties to the tide...

And when Michael Stipe sings those words you believe it and you know it's true.  At 30, there's no one left to take the lead, it's up to you little fish.  So stay in the pond or ride the river to the tide. 

As the last track comes to an end, your brain tries to wrap itself around all the memories and questions that it’s been attempting to process this evening, so you decide to throw it out to the universe for awhile.

Sometimes it’s not about staying in the pond or riding the river.  Sometimes it’s just about floating for awhile to enjoy the moon.