A Younger Me by Jamie Kirkpatrick

Yep; that’s me. At least it was me. Darker hair and more of it. The Fu Manchu mustache, sign of the times. The same squinty right eye. At least seventy fewer pounds. Best guess? I’m in my early twenties and either on my way to, or having just arrived in, Tunisia at the start of the Peace Corps phase of my life. Whew…

It’s a miracle this photo even exists. Cell phones that could take photographs weren’t even a gleam in anyone’s eye back then, at least not anyone I knew. I have no idea who took the shot, nor with what device. Nothing was digital back then, so it must have been a real camera with real film that would have been sent off in a mailer to be developed in a real laboratory somewhere, then returned, weeks later, by snail mail, in a flat envelope with thirty-five other grainy photos, to an address in some zip code that probably doesn’t exist anymore.

I’m thinking I look angry or thoughtful or maybe just puzzled. I doubt I was angry; why would a twenty-something kid with his whole life in front of him be angry about anything? Not that there weren’t “things” to be angry about like Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War, or the killings at Kent State, or corrupt corporate recruiters coming onto college campuses trying to woo my generation into jobs that would just perpetuate the system, whatever the system was. No; I’m guessing I was just trying to look cool, like I had everything under control, figured out, solved. It appears I was wearing a small chain or a necklace of some sort. I vaguely remember wearing a small gold cross for a few months, kind of like the ones that gets worn now in the White House Briefing Room or over in the Department of Defense. Sorry; I refuse to call that place the Department of War,

I know what you’re thinking: so, what would you tell this young man, this boy? But you would be wrong. I would rather stand that trope on its head and ask that young me what he would tell this old me. C’mon; look at that face. You’ve got it all figured out. Tell this old man what to do. Tell him what he needs to remember, what he needs to know.

And you say, “Drink the beer. Chase the girls. Get a motorcycle and ride it around Africa, Get a tattoo. Play that twelve string guitar like you mean it. Stay up late. Play your music loud. Run a marathon. Get another tattoo. Marry that pretty little girl. Make babies. Read good books.” At least I had that part right.

And I say, “What shouldn’t I do?”

And you say, “Nothing. Do it all, then do it all over again and again and again.”

And I say, “I can’t. I’m tired. I’ve got prostate cancer.”

And you say, “What’s prostate cancer?”

Looking into my younger eyes in that old photograph, I’m tempted to wax nostalgic, but you tell me not to. “Why? What’s the point? Go live your life. Live in a cool place and have lots of cool friends. Be happy. Don’t worry so much. It’s all good.”

“That’s all?”

“Maybe cut back a little on the rosé. Go write a book. In fact, write three books, a trilogy, then turn that into a quartet.”

Life can get real, real fast. I know that now. But then I think, “You know, that younger me does still exists, and not just in a faded old photo or in memories. No; he’s still in there somewhere, still wondering about how it will all work out…”

I’ll be right back.