I am fond of thinking that I learn from my mistakes. I mean…sure, sometimes it takes a couple of bangs before I realize that I’m Screwing Things Up and do something different but I am a learning machine….and I evolve. It stands, then, to reason that the me today is somehow a better and smarter version of the me from yesterday. Maybe not by much. But still better..
So why then that after eleven thousand three hundred(ish) days after birth am I still doing the same things? I came home from my vacation laden with old childhood paraphernalia. And in many of them, there sits a little boy and his toys.
Me and my robot
One of the pictures has a shot of a particularly beloved robot. It doesn’t have a logo or a cartoon associated with it. But that little robot was the basis of many a mecha designed on my notebook during my high school and college years. I still have a thing for robots. I sit too close to the TV making the same excitedly strangled noises whenever there’s one on the screen tromping on another one.
Or what about the Trans-freakin’-formers? I had to share my first one with my brother. He was a red Lambo called Sideswipe. They made them metal back then. All the better to club each other while fighting for the toy. My favorite was Jazz. He’s a white Porsche (I had a thing for Porsches at such a young age) back in the 80s. Imagine my glee when I was given the modern version of Jazz . Only now, he’s a white RX-8. Oh how I squealed three christmases ago. Because nowadays, I drive around in one.
Which neatly brings me to the topic of cars. Sure, the transformer that watches over me as I type this is a model of my real world wheels. So as I’ve grown older, the vehicles have grown larger. I used to go tearing around the floor pushing one of my Hot Wheels around, squealing the wheels and making lots of noise. Now, I tear around freeway onramps. Where once I obsessively cleaned and tricked out my BMX bike, now, I obsessively clean and trick out my car. Only I still haven’t figured out how to lodge that card by the wheels to make that flappity sound.
Oh well, at least I’ve learned to design things better. I used to sit in class and design hypothetical controls for hypothetical spaceships. Back then, it was a #2 pencil to a sheet of paper. I’d work out targeting computers, HUD displays, even the little knob that self destructs the ship in case of alien takeover. Nowadays, I still design. Only it’s on Photoshop and I’m making interfaces for website and applications. Space ships were cooler.
The list goes on. The bulk of TV I watch is animated. I read more comic books than I read real print. I like to sit on the floor and make a neat little semi circle of my toys around me (though I’ve traded in the action figures for iCrap). I still bust singing when no one is around and my head is still proportionately much bigger than my body.
I just turned 31. In my book, I’m supposed to have Gotten Older and Better. It used to seem like such a distant age when I was young. And now that I’m here, I can’t help but think that I haven’t even let some bits of my childhood yet. I look back at the young big headed kid I used to be, the nerdy big-headed kid I used to be, the angst-ridden big-headed teen I used to be, and wish that I could travel back in time to kick my own ass and get me to do Some Things Better. I know a lot more now.
Sometimes I wish I could re-encounter people in the past to show off my new and improved features. But that’s a small list compared to the things that have stayed the same. But then future me always feels better than past me. So in another eleven thousand days, I’m sure I’ll wish I could travel back to February 13, 2009 to kick my own ass.
But still. I’ve been around the block enough time to know that I can do worse than doodling all the time, playing with my toys, watching Big Ass Fighting Robots on TV and having to wear a hat that’s far too big for people of my size.
My only real fear is that the last time my birthday fell on a Friday the 13th, I got permanently scarred. It was because of a hill, a sidecar, and a chicken. I wonder what’s going to happen this year. Where’s my extra big crash helmet?
=New & Improved BG Out=