and I'm now thinking of transience, how the random unfairness of the world is its joy as well, the world is changed in ways I couldn't have imagined as a kid so far away and so long ago.

Some of what seems scary is merely unfamiliar and new, what's really scary now was already unbearably old when Reagan was in office, when Isabella expelled my ancestors from Spain, when Duke William starved the north of England into submission.

And while my childhood held joys and wonders that my friends will never know, I will never know what it's like growing up with the internet unfolding or being a teenager posting to DeviantArt and Elfwood, or any number of things; any more than I will now what it's like to sit in wonder at the flickering black and white screen showing the first steps on the moon, hear this new band The Beatles who aren't like anything else I'd heard before, etc etc.

And that's okay too.