When you look back, you’re gonna find that these were the best days of your life.
It seemed like this line was in half the movies I watched as a teenager.
And I watched a lot of them.
This was the era just before smartphones and streaming. It was easy to gather information on any movie ever released, but difficult to watch anything not currently in theaters.
So, I made a list of films to catch up on, and I methodically worked my way through it. First, courtesy of rental DVDs from the video store down the street. Then through DVDs sent by mail from a fledgling company called Netflix.
This was how I caught up on the classics, the contemporary classics — and all the high school movies.
The Breakfast Club? Dazed and Confused? American Pie? I saw them all — and others. And for the most part, I liked what I watched.
Still, this line about high school being the best years of one’s life irked me. It didn’t quite compute.
You see, I was in high school at that time. But it wasn’t exactly Ridgemont High. Instead, it was fancy private school with a hefty tuition.
I was not exceedingly well off. But my parents taught in the institution’s middle school. So, starting in 9th grade, I got the opportunity to enroll. And my parents benefitted a hefty tuition discount.
When it came to academics, I certainly belonged. I was a bright kid, able to meet the challenge of rigorous classes. But socially, I was a fish out of water.
I was a suburban kid, surrounded by the scions of the city. I had nothing in common with them, and they had little use for me. Plus, I was shy, and none of the girls I liked would give me the time of day.
I did have a best friend — who remains my closest friend to this day. And we got into all kinds of misadventures together. But aside from that, nothing seemed to match all those Hollywood scripts.
The best days of my life? I thought out loud one night, while studying for a Pre-Calculus exam. God, I hope not.
Going to college felt like lifting a weight from my shoulders.
I was in a new city, surrounded by new people, embracing newfound freedom. And I made the most of it.
Surrounded by friends, and with new experiences at my fingertips, I felt like a new person. I remember viscerally declaring that the movies were wrong. These were the best days of my life.
Yet, when I look back, some of that shine starts to fade.
I was the odd man out when my freshman dorm hall neighbors chose their suitemates for sophomore year. That meant I had to essentially start over as a second-year student.
While I did build a new social group, I had a falling out with many of them during my senior year. As my collegiate days dwindled, I found myself alone once again.
I also totaled my car on a busy freeway. And I once had to pack up and quickly move to a new off-campus home when my landlord got a foreclosure notice.
So yes, these were the days. But the best ones? Those were yet to come.
Job requires 3 to 5 years of applicable experience.
I read this line over and over as I browsed online job postings from my extended stay hotel room.
I didn’t have the applicable experience. But I applied anyway.
I had to.
You see, I’d spent the past two years and nine months in another city and another industry. I had taken a job that I loved but had come to loathe it.
So, I left for a fresh start. A new career. A new city. A new chance to find those best years of my life that I’d been chasing for the better part of a decade.
But the job experience disclaimer foretold a grim reality. There was no quick exit from purgatory.
By the time I did land a position, I’d accepted reality. I would need to spend five more years proving myself — professionally and personally — before better things came my way. I’d be pushing 30 years old by then. But better late than never.
So, I got to it.
I quickly learned my new trade and set out to master it. I changed my lifestyle to improve my health. And I enrolled in business school while working full-time.
I did hit a few bumps in the road — including a layoff — but I kept moving forward. And after those five years, I felt my investment paying off.
I was confident, self-sufficient, and self-assured. I’d learned to lean into my introversion. And I’d built enough life experience to bring contexts to the ups and downs of my day to day.
There was the potential for even more — once I earned my MBA and took my career to the next level. But at long last, the best days of my life were finally here.
For various reasons, that breakthrough never fully arrived. There have been a series of ups and downs in my life since then. But I still consider these to be the best days of my life.
Well, mostly.
Do I have the flu, or am I just old?
I ask myself this question each morning, as I achingly sit up in bed.
It might sound like a joke. But it’s the honest truth.
The days of me hitting the ground running are gone for good. My body is perpetually sore from resting, and it takes a moment to get going.
My sense of resilience is similarly elusive. As a boy, I once bounced back up and finished a race after falling on an asphalt track. Now, when I wipe out on black ice, I need a few minutes to compose myself before getting to my feet.
Yes, the best days of my life are long gone from a physical standpoint. I peaked athletically years ago and am now on a steady decline.
Of course, I didn’t make the most of those days. For they lined up with my early-adulthood malaise — when I lacked the discipline and maturity to make the most of my physical gifts.
I have to live with that now.
Staying healthy is a costly venture in every sense for me. Yet, the cost of unhealthy habits is even steeper.
It’s a brutal catch-22. One that my peers and I are all mired in.
I wish that the two peaks aligned. That physical mastery overlapped with mental and emotional maturity.
But that’s never been the case.
As humans, we’ve been trained for millennia to harness our skills in succession. First, we’d exhaust our physical gifts through menial work and procreation. Then, when our bodies started to give out, we’d share the gift of seasoned wisdom with the tribe.
Such are the ways of nature. And it would be preposterous for me to question them.
So, maybe it’s time for me to let go of the Hollywood fantasy. Maybe it’s time to acknowledge that there is no singular set of best days of my life to strive for.
What I was chasing, what I thought I attained — it may well have been a white whale.
It’s time to admit my error. To make peace with the concept that I’ve been at my best physically, mentally, and spiritually in different eras. And to simply be grateful for the gifts I’ve been given, instead of clamoring for what might still lie ahead.
I am making this shift. So should we all.