I found moving introspection in an old journal of mine I have not come across or opened for at least a couple of decades. Here are a few:

Entry dated December 23, 1977. (24 years old – married two years):
Love for members of the opposite sex will come on you suddenly and probably half scare you to death, but it will be one of the most heightened sensations you’ll feel. At first you’ll like someone and as you get older you will “think” you are in love, only one day to wake up to the harsh reality that you don’t even know what the word really means.

Entry dated July 15, 1980
In 10 days I will turn 27 years old. Thinking over the last 10 years I think the hardest time was just out of high school. It’s difficult to want so much and yet not understand how to get it. I wanted to be on my own and moved to Colorado. Got a job, but was terrible with money (I didn’t make much anyway). My car was repossessed… walked for six month to my job, hitch-hiked or borrowed roommate’s car. I ran myself down, ending up in the hospital with a stomach ulcer. Since then things have gotten better… but slowly. The point is…
* Beware of the times you think you’re right and those you care about say you are wrong…
* I am a firm believer in a person doing what he or she wants…
* That freedom is priceless and precious…
* But listen to those around you too…
* They’re right sometimes…

Entry Dated March 28, 1981
Life is the answer to its own riddle. You’ll not get it completely to make sense, nor will you ever completely figure it out. Learn what is presented and what you observe, but never let yourself believe you have really figured life out. You never will! Always be searching to understand though… try to be patient.

Entry dated 1973 (I lived in Manitou Springs, Colorado):
You smile and the song begins
And in my mind you enter in.
The lyrics lay heavy on all I feel,
Stabbing sharply with pain so real.

Memories of time lost in life’s confusion,
The song remembers one of life’s illusions.
The melody surrounds and makes me shake
With each soft chord the music makes.

The tempo builds and I run faster
Across the creek and through the pasture
Then stumble and fall hard on the ground.
Quickly I raise my head and look around;
I see no one… can’t hear a sound.

And with the silence’s break
I find myself suddenly awake
From what must have been a dream
Of scars I bear inside… unseen.

What do I feel from reading the old journal? I am older and different, but much the same. In spite of all I have been though, I never lost myself. I’ve grown up and am not nearly so lost and confused, but I am still the same man I started out to be. And for that I am extremely grateful.

We have to dare to be ourselves,
however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.
May Sarton