I wonder how I will be when I'm old enough to officially have these sort of perception issues. To me, childhood was a series of next steps. (School, sports... always something to do, always a new year, new grade, check the boxes, move on) I recognize that is unusual. I'm not sure if there was a goal beyond getting to 'the future' despite not having a clear picture of what 'the future' entailed.
Summers were perceived as slow, because they were. The only things to do were to play baseball/basketball with friends and go on bike rides. (Or later, summer jobs, then going out to movies, etc)
Did I ever envision myself at 28 when I was 8, or 18? Not specifically. Classes were chosen based on what I could do with a reasonable amount of interest and effort, and what would provide the best odds of a job later on. That worked out well enough. The only thing about the present is that the steps are further apart than in school. Jobs are steps, not much different than grades really. They just seem to take 3 years at a time for me to step up to the next one.
There are some constants in my life. I'm glad there are friends who have lived life in parallel for a long period of time. It helps provide perspective. Despite the house experiment in Charlotte I don't seem to aspire to anything beyond a small apartment - this makes the job bit easier - no need to work too hard. Travel seems to be a constant as well.
What's the next step? I think the problem I'm running into now is the 'here is a fine place to be, but there has to be a change eventually, right?' mode of thought. More on that later...
