Glory Days

Now I think I'm going down to the well tonight
and I'm going to drink till I get my fill
And I hope when I get old I don't sit around thinking about it
but I probably will
Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture
a little of the gloria
well time slips away
and leaves you with nothing mister but
boring stories of glory days
Glory days well they'll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl's eye
Glory days, glory days
                      -Bruce Springsteen, "Glory Days"


I've always been really uncomfortable with the idea that there are "best days of our lives"--our Glory Days. Like the Bruce Springsteen song, or that Bryan Adams song, summer of '69. (are the Boss and Bryan Adams the same genre, americana rock or something? is this just a theme of that kind of singersongwriter? Does John Cougar Mellencamp also have a song about years gone by? must investigate.) These references to a "best time" especially worry me because most of them refer to high school as that time, and I hated high school.


Well, the problem is, I loved college. And now, as a member of the post-college delirium group, I often feel like college was the best days of our lives. Yessiree, it was the good ol' days, nothing will ever be as good, the rest of my life is tedium and I will now become and alcoholic. 


It seems fitting, though. That college should be the best years instead of high school. 40 years ago all you needed was a high school diploma, and those were the best times. Now you need a college diploma, and the best years of your life have been upgraded as well.


I guess part of not really believing in a "best days of my life" thing before was that I hated high school and please tell me God that this is definitely, definitely not the best years of my life. 


Sometimes there is a benefit in having a real hard time of something. It meant that I looked ahead for my escape instead of behind me.


Given that, the healthiest thing to do would be to remember all the parts of college that I really hated. To de-romanticize the period a bit. Then, instead of longing for the by-gone days, I'll remember that those in fact sucked too, and all I will have left is the future. Or, I will become an alcoholic that much faster.

These people look older. Maybe this movie tells me that the best years of our lives is really middle age?