Revisiting your past carries some dangerous risk.
Truth is, things that seemed amazing, revelatory or just plain cool as a child or teenager can lose a good bit of that sheen when you see them as an adult.
The house in which I spent my elementary school years in Doraville, Georgia, seemed pretty big when I was there. I happened to drive by it about a decade ago. There was a for-sale sign in the front yard and an open-house sign hanging from the mailbox. No way I was going to just drive past.
Shawn RyanWow. That was one small house. Perhaps it’s because I’m taller and my shoulders wider, but I felt like everything was a tight fit. What seemed like an enormous living/dining room now made me wonder how we managed to fit the furniture in there and still have room to move.
A couple of nights ago, I was again caught between the perceptions of a child and an adult. Cruising through TV channels, I saw the name “Where Eagles Dare” pop up.
“Oh, cool!” I thought. When I was 12, I went to the theater at least three times to see this World War II movie with Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton. There were submachine guns and dynamite and a wicked, bloody fight on top of a cable car hundreds of feet off the ground. It rocked my world.
All of those elements were still there, but so were a lot of plot holes, wildly unrealistic situations and dumb dialogue. I turned it off after awhile and went to bed.
It’s not just movies that can cause this dismay. Some songs that spoke to me as if the songwriter was peering into my skull now sound shallow or misogynistic or foolish. The same is true with books. Some you loved decades ago now seem like poorly written slag.
Sure, as you grow up, experience changes your perspective, and life changes in general, so it’s easy to see why what meant so much years ago doesn’t resonate now.
And most of us have expectations when we revisit something from our past. It will be just the same as we remember, right? I’ll get the same thrill I had when I was younger, right?
We try to believe, even though a voice inside is saying: “OK, simmer down. You’re older and – maybe – wiser and you know things don’t always meet your expectations.” But sometimes we can’t help ourselves.
Memories are freakishly powerful and can form concrete images in your head that are hard to break down without a sledgehammer. Problem is, that sledgehammer can release a wave of disappointment and disillusionment.
Contact Shawn Ryan at mshawnryan@gmail.com.