Glory days, decades go by in the blink of an eye…

As I was strolling through my local office supply store in search of the latest day planner or anything that would stimulate my desire to be organized and or motivated, the Bruce Springsteen Classic, “Glory Days” (youtube.com) was playing in between requests for “copy center pick up on line 2″…

I found myself singing along, much to the dismay of the staff and my fellow shoppers . What they couldn’t hear were my thoughts of the decades gone by, seemingly in the wink of someones eye…

With a career in turmoil and a county in despair, those “Glory Days” of my long lost youth came crashing back like a cold splash of water on a hot summer day. Although it was an unconventional journey, the memories of those times remind me more of the tears than the cheers…

During the drive back to “my office”, I began to view my life in segments, or “decades”. Perhaps in an attempt to justify the lost potential as a “late bloomer”, or at least to shut off the song in my head.

I’m sure many Americans can relate to my story of time that slips away, but noting beats a quick reminder like a song from the past. Funny how music seems to trigger the senses and almost magically transports us back to a former place and time, good or bad. Often the memories include not only people and places, but states of mind.

My “twenty something” decade was filled with attempts to become a man, after coming from a broken home, moving every two years since my Mother remarried when I was only 5, and then living thousands of miles away at the fragile age of 17. Relatives came to the rescue and offered a platform to “grow up” in the deep South. The last year of high school was a blur, and the first two years of college a nightmare. I struggled to “fit in” and battled depression and anxiety, wondering how all the other students seemed to have families and histories that gave them foundation.

Incredibly, after fits and starts with classes, part time jobs, torturous relationships with my first real girlfriends, I somehow graduated with an actual college degree. It may have taken me the majority of that decade, but at least I could say on that day, I had been made…

Prior to my 30th birthday, after stints as a YMCA sports director during the last few years of school, and a short time in business equipment sales, I began my decade in professional health care sales. Don’t ask me how, but I blundered into a corporate medical device company, and off I went, into the 1990’s dot-com boom years of abundance.

Before I knew it, I was living on a golf course earning more money than my late Father I never knew, step Father I hardly knew, and most people I did know. Although I despised my career, the trappings seemed to draw new friends and foes alike to my inner circle. Try as I may, I was unfulfilled and miserable, as if something was telling me I was not “on purpose”.

By the end of that decade, give or take a few years, I had completely abandoned the corporate world, and embarked upon my current “entrepreneurial” path. Walking away from well over six figure incomes, I convinced myself that I wanted to be my own boss, and to get out from under “the thumb” of those that dictated my future. At 39 I began pursuing my own business, commissioned sales and independent distribution as I moved on to greener pastures with the dream of charting my own course…

Moving back to my birthplace in my 40’s, I attempted to settle in with “my people” including the family I had abandoned at 17, only to realize that you really cant “go home again”. Yet after I had moved back South, with minimal success in that last decade, it was gone, “in the wink of a young girls eye“…

I stand by my decision to follow my dream, yet only wish that those that come after me realize that those “Glory Days” will pass you by. Perhaps it’s not what we achieve in life , but that you cherish each day, every decade, regardless if it comes with cheers, tears, or lost years….