A reminder of multiple views of the past

I went back to the school I attended for twelve years for my 25th reunion of my graduating class.  What was different this time was that I had decided to try my hand at the Glee Club's part of the reunion rather than the cross-country team's.  The one non-traditional song in the group was a TTBB arrangement of "Homeland" by Z. Randall Stroope.  It was both a reminder of what parts of my life I had long since left behind, and how I had changed.

It was delayed a few hours after I had participated in the performance with the boys and the other alumni, but as a veteran, I wept.  Partly for what I had left 25 years ago, but also for what I left more recently in the last 7 years.

In a quarter hour, he cried away his youth.  No matter what else happened, it was gone.  If he quit he would have scarred his innocence with the knowledge that he couldn't take it.  He knew he would never quit.

So he cried instead for his youth.  He cried because, with one decision, and after a day that he despised above all others in his life, he had committed himself to at least nine years of orders and abstinence and repression and confinement, worst of all confinement, the inability to decide any large aspect of his life.

And after nine years, if any portion of his happy wildness were to survive, it would be old.

James Webb, A Sense of Honor