From the Editor’s Desk: Everything Changes, Nothing Changes (Premium)

I've been confronting the past and trying to reconcile it with the present, and all I can say for sure is that while everything changes, nothing really changes. It's been a regular theme in recent months.

Last month, my wife and I found ourselves bracing in anticipation of a conversation we always when we're about to drive home after a long weekend in the Boston area. Based on years of experience, it's always better to leave as early as possible because travel related issues always multiply over the course of a day, whether it's on the ground and in the air. And with this drive taking a minimum of five hours these days---this is another thing that's gotten worse over time---leaving early means we can get home in time to actually have a meaningful Sunday, during which we can get work done and relax at home, rather than spend most of the day in the car.

But the friends we often stay with always use this as an opportunity to make us feel guilty, as if every time we leave is an unhappy reminder that we left them behind in a bigger way when we left Boston and moved to Pennsylvania six and a half years ago. It's a reminder for us, too, that we'll never really be forgiven for that decision. It's a cutting mom-level guilt-trip that we dread every time.

Only it didn't happen this time, for what I believe is the first time ever. And that's because these friends visited us over the summer for a long weekend, and they opted to leave for home as early as possible on Sunday because of some kids-related commitments later that day. And they, too, enjoyed not losing an entire Sunday to driving. So instead of the well-oiled guilt trip we had become resigned to, we were treated to an exuberant confirmation that our ideas about leaving early were sound. One small step for mankind, I guess, if not for friendship. It certainly made the drive home---which is often monotonous---get off to a good start.

But that trip, like my curiously unsettling November trip to Seattle for Microsoft Ignite, triggered some self-reflection. Part of that is normal, all of my trips have the same effect. But I've also been consolidating all of our family photos over what has now been a nearly five-month-long slob, and being confronted by the past so much, having so many "oh, yeah" moments as I see some pictures that may literally be new to me, carries a certain weight, or burden. And like me, my friends have crested their mid-50s and are sliding inexorably into whatever we now call what happens after middle-age. This requires some rationalization.

I try to make light of this by routinely spouting the line, "Getting older is the best!" whenever I can. It's an updated version of my previous obvious commentary that "Kids are the best!", a line that stopped making sense when my own kids, who are in fact wonderful and always have been, reached adulthood. But there was that same déjà vu/Groundhog Day feeling all over again, where though everything has changed in so many wa...