A youth well spent

I hear this question a lot these days, “Do you ever wonder what you used to do with all your free time?” The first few times I fell right into the deep hole of despair this question, perhaps unknowingly, implies: the agony of a wasted life.

Yes, I miss sleeping in. I miss the days when my body wouldn’t automatically come to life five minutes before Pearl wakes up. I miss staying up late for no apparent reason, safe in the knowledge that I would feel wonderful the next day regardless. I miss the freedom to just read all day, the freedom to spend days agonizing over a single blog post. But it’s not these little moments seemingly filled with nothing that I mourn.

To answer the question, no I do not wonder how I filled my time. I remember fondly, I spent it doing things like this:

Pardon my humble brag, but I’m happy to say my youth was not wasted. Life did not begin or end with Pearl. She found us mid-way through the story; well developed characters with an expansive history rich in self-discovery. And even though our time is now spent doing this like this: