Tuesday, March 29, 2011

It's all good, all the time

When I was a child, I thought as a child, but now that I have become a man, I still feel like a child.  I have a hard time understanding how children could look at me in the same way that I looked at adults when I was young.  Now that I've gained the perspective of being 44 years old, I know how foolish I was when I thought adults knew everything. 

Barney Family 1967, I'm the youngest
This morning while I was doing my toiletries, I was looking into my bathroom mirror at myself.  I have one of those medicine cabinets that are separated into three sections by three different mirrored doors.  One of the doors was slightly off, making me look pretty funky.  My goatee was a tight, little circle of hairs, I had no nose and only one eye.  I was amused at this, and pulled faces at myself.  Other times in front of that mirror, as I have been brushing what's left of my hair, the doors would be positioned such that it looked like I had both arms at my side, and a third arm doing the brushing.  "Cool," I'd think.  Doesn't that seem childish to you?  Is it the same with everyone, or am I just weird?  I guess those two choices are not mutually exclusive.


Barney Family, 1995, gathered for Mom's spine surgery.  I am 2nd from the left with the hat
When I was in, maybe 1st grade, I was walking home from school with 2 other kids my age.  My memory is sketchy, but I found myself standing on the sidewalk in front of someone's house holding a sizable rock, looking at a big, plate glass window.  Why my arm lifted and the rock flew I really don't know.  I remember not knowing even then why I did that.  My parents asked me why I threw that rock and broke that window.  I answered that I didn't know.  How many times have you heard a kid say that and thought, "Why can't you just tell me?"  But I really didn't.  So, now I believe them.

Listening to adults talk when I was a kid, I remember feeling excited about when I would finally be able to say things like, "I haven't done that in 20 years," or "Remember when we did such and such 25 years ago."  It's been about 30 years since I thought that way.



Barney Kids, 1967  Susie, Bob, Mike, John (me) & Richard

That's' me in the little, white jacket.  I am the youngest of 6 kids.  My parents' 2nd child (David) died before the next 4 were born.  That's my oldest brother, Mike, with his arms around me, helping support me.  I could sure still use some of that every once in a while.  He died 3 years ago, finally succumbing to all the pain medications he'd had to take for the last 25 years or so.  But, like he used to say, not just when things were bad, but especially when things were bad, "It's all good, all the time."

Thanks for listening -JB

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