I was always afraid of children. Even when I was one of them, I hung back by the grownups. They were safer. They never tried to get me in trouble.

I wonder if that’s part of why I’m such a disaster now, never knowing how to take a chance. The only real risk-takers in our society are the ones who don’t know any better, the ones too young to care. And yet there I was, making chitchat with the fuddy-duddies lost in their search for what used to be their youth, sipping whiskeys and talking amongst themselves about crap that they couldn’t care less about, trying to hide that they’re almost too scared to move.

The grownups always said I was so old for my age. I wonder now if that was a compliment, or a warning for what was to come.

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