Yesterday, There was so many things
I was never told
Now that I'm startin' to learn
I feel I'm growing old

'Cause yesterday's got nothin' for me
Old pictures that I'll always see
Some things could be better
In my book of memories.

The above is from a Guns-n-Roses song circa 1991…a decade ago. And what does that mean? When did I truly grow-up and how has it happened without me realizing it. I’m having a hard time with my life lately, growing-up that is. I live too much on past glories and its probably why I have such a hard time moving forward with change. That’s understated. I never embrace change with ease. Never have, never will. Even thinking back over important changes in my life, junior high, high school, college, the growing summers in between semesters, graduation, into the real world, the first job, the break-up, the peeps, Tracy, changing jobs, moving-in, getting engaged and now, buying a new house. With the possible exception of breaking it off with Andi, I have never embraced any of these changes…ever. What does that say about me? Why is it I take so long to warm to something different? Why do I view all change as evil? If I don’t resist it I try and run from it. I needn’t look any further than just a year ago when I left Faulkner. I hated this job. Granted, I’m not the biggest fan of it now, but it still has its moments of satisfaction. But this house….why am I viewing it as some sort of life sentence? As Cobain screamed…what is wrong with me? I’m having thoughts I don’t like lately, thoughts about what it would be like if I were to just run and leave it all behind? And there it is again, I’m afraid of what lies ahead and my first inclination is to run from it. Why? Why am I instinctively predisposed to running from the new? Ideally, the adult response would be to acknowledge this pattern of behavior and take this opportunity to change it. I have to, this is simply too big of a change to run from. I’m not even sure what my reasoning would be…or how I could even begin to justify it to myself. I like the comfortable, its familiar and you know what to expect. When Phish took their hiatus I vowed this would be a good opportunity to make changes in my own life. What better a time then when the one constant in my life for the last eight years has disappeared? And I’ve made many. For the most part it feels good, but these have been long-term plans. And now I’m starting to see them, and my first inclination is to run? Absurd, stupid and ridiculous. Maybe it’s not a matter of fearing the growing-up process, its fear of change. A massive fear, that I may have never realized just how much it affects me. I’ve got more to talk through, but work calls. I need to push through this, not run. Yesterday, there were so many things I was never told…now I’ve got to learn from that and not run. I can’t run, not this time.