Life lessons reminded by the expiration date on peanut butter

The other day I opened the kitchen cabinet and noticed the expiration date on our peanut butter.  Being that we’re a family of 4 I knew that this jar would never, ever last to the end of the month, much less 2015.  2015 in the context of a jar of peanut butter seems impossibly far away.  It’s a date too absurd to even think about, until I looked to the right of that cabinet.

It’s a picture of my wife and I on vacation five years ago.  It was before children, also known as the other meaning for B.C.  That seems like ages ago, a time so far removed I couldn’t possibly be the same man or think the same way, until I looked on the front of the refrigerator.

 It’s a picture of our two boys.  They were never that small, were they?  Look at that little Michelin Man baby with the chubby legs.  He’s a marshmallow baby who is in no way the running, screeching little toddler we currently have.

 I went back into the office to continue working.  To get some working music I searched Spotify and saw that The Primitives had a new release out.  New is relative, it came out in 2012, but it was the first I had heard about it.   When The Primitives first came out in the late 80’s I was working in radio and they were all over the indie chart.

Immediately work was put on the back burner and I was day dreaming about my college days.  I remembered the time I was accidentally identified as over 21 and ordered a beer.  When they said “what kind”, I froze and just said “beer”.  They promptly asked me to leave the club.

The time a friend and I got fired for airing a live telephone call asking if a certain professor would be teaching naked.  The fact that I rarely to ever studied, but somehow graduated from college.  Granted it was with a degree in broadcasting, but I graduated.

The time a radio station that I was working for in Key West changed their mailing address to Cincinnati, where the owner lived.

The incredible luck and fortunate circumstances I had while traveling that included serving drinks to a guy who hooked me up with a radio job in Italy.

The opportunities and lessons that I learned from working at Walt Disney World and in Japan.

My mind continued to vividly go through my life.  For a moment I was able to remember names that I hadn’t thought of in 20 years, silly things that I had done and ideas that I wanted to do.   I was mentally like Neo in The Matrix, with all of my memories zipping back and forth like a rolodex.

About this time Abby hobbled into the room.  Abby is our 13 year old three legged retriever.  She plopped down in the office, sighed and started to nap.  Her chin wasn’t always white.  When I first adopted her she would run side by side her older four legged brother.

All of these great memories brought on just by looking at the expiration date on our peanut butter jar.  It reminded me that if you never start something you will never finish something.  I always found it silly that people have New Year’s Resolutions.

Mentally, it does help having a clean slate, as in a year to say that I (insert whatever here) in 2013.  But, if you really want to do/start/stop something the only thing holding you back is you.  Mind you, there is nothing I’m aching to do/start/stop, I’m just marveling at the concept of time.

I’m the same as I was in the 80’s, just a much more responsible update with children, a wife, family and pets.  It’s true what my dad said once, he thinks the same, just has an older body.  Dang, I’m becoming my old man-or, he was just like me when he was young.  I’d vote for the later.