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My 16-Year-Old Self Would Never Believe This Shit!
The countdown to 51 is in full swing! 9 days to go. And as each birthday approaches, I find myself becoming more and more reflective. That’s particularly true this year because a) I’m officially crossing into my second half-century (which I fully intend to live through) and b) I just learned that my brother has been diagnosed with throat cancer.
He’s 15 years older than me and I can’t say we’re exactly close. We never were. We were, in very real terms, almost an entire generation apart. He came of age during Woodstock, bell bottoms and Deep Purple. He was a sweet, obedient child who inherited many of his parent’s old-fashioned values.
I did not. I was not. I was more “decade of decadence,” Aquanet and George Michael. We had and have nothing in common. But I wouldn't wish cancer on anyone.
All this has got me thinking about life, getting older and change. It got me thinking about what a 16-year-old me would have thought of the world today and seriously, she wouldn’t believe half of it.
1. Legal Weed?: Back in my day, marijuana was bad, very, very bad. Only the naughty kids and the headbangers smoked that stuff. It was illegal, full stop. People actually went to jail for possessing and/or…