Looking back

I've been in a nostalgic mood lately, which reached its logical conclusion tonight, when I went rifling through some old writings, drawings, and other papers I've collected over the years. When I was in middle school, one of my teachers had us write a letter to our future selves, to be delivered by him ten years later. I had just moved to Texas when my mother received mine, and I remember the confusion when she asked me about that strange piece of mail over the phone. She recognized my writing on the envelope, but why would I mail it to my old address? I don't think I remembered what it was at the time, but I had her send it on to me, and it was something of a shock to open it and get that little window into my young mind. By 23, I had written, I expected to have a car (check), a college degree (check), a house (nope), and be a pilot (wrong again-I gave that up senior year of high school, when I decided to focus on writing).

As I've gotten older, I've become a lot more reflective, especially in the last two or three years. Not so much long term, but in that I try to always examine my own reactions and motivations. If I get angry at something, I stop and think about why. If I say something and regret it, I try to remember what I was thinking at the time. It's occurred to me that this kind of behavior could be paralyzing if taken too far, but hopefully I'll never reach that point.

Maybe I'm overcompensating, but I took a course on hang gliding last Saturday at a local school through UT's informal classes. When I was in New Zealand, I did both sky diving and white water rafting. Eventually I'll get to bungie jumping, and not far north of Austin there's a zip line operation through the Texas treetops I plan to try out soon. I can't claim to be eXtreme, but I do enjoy trying new things, even (maybe especially) if they're dangerous.