Youth is Wasted on the Young

Our oldest son Echo turned 14 this past May and like everything else, having a big family and running a business along with fighting two foreclosures life gets in the way of good intensions.  Finally after 4 months I was able to set up an outdoor excursion for him and three of his friends to the local game room.

A friend of ours told us about a special they run called Twelve Dollar Tuesdays.  Sounds like a good deal, all video games, all day long for only 12 bucks each and besides, it seems like a better deal than Pedophile Phriday but that’s another story. 

Anyway, I dropped them off at about one and for 3 ½ hours they immersed themselves in bright lights and noise.  If you noticed, I dropped them off; at my age bright lights and noise are quite bothersome to me.  My brain has taken on a sort of bunny like fear of such things.  Lots of painful wincing.

After the bright lights and noise ended it was decided that pizza would be the meal of choice because what self-respecting party thrower would let a birthday party pass without supplying pizza to the party goers.

I took them down to the beach to eat at our favorite pizza place and after the order was given they took off to frolic.  They’re not quite at the age where they are riddled with angst they are more at the “I’m running free in the fresh air without a care in the world” age.  I got to watch from a distance the joys of being a kid, because my son would not want his dad hanging around with him and his friends except to pay for things, it would just be un-cool.

The four of them ran through the playground and later on the beach just happy to be alive, it was a beautiful sight to behold. I sit there realizing “Youth is wasted on the young” because they don’t know how good they have it. The total weight of life’s responsibilities and pressures haven’t crept into their lives yet which gave me pangs of envy for the time that I was their age.  It’s a shame they don’t appreciate it or don’t cherish each day. I guess its part of growing up because I didn’t see it either.

I also notice how our once little boy is growing up into a fine young man.  When he was first born and running solo for five and half years we called him “The Boy”, now I guess we will have to call him “The Man” or at least the “The Young Man.”