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"Experience" is the name so many people give to their mistakes...

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ORIGINAL: OrpheusAgonistes
What do you think the "you" that was there ten years ago would think of you now?  What do you think of yourself ten years ago?  Are you ever surprised by the way you've turned out?  Do you think you have any surprises in store for yourself?

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What do you think the "you" that was there ten years ago would think of you now?

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Also, in my 20s, I thought I always had to rebel, swim against the current to be authentic. In my 30s, I realised that I to be authentic, I had to disregard which direction the current was going and swim in the direction that was right for me, and that sometimes it would be easier (with the current) and other times it would be harder (against the current). As a result, I'm much less exhausted and enjoy a little floating ;-)

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Every decade has had its highs and lows. I was in my 30's before I began to learn some very important things about life, about myself. Looking back, my 20 year old self would not recognize who I am today, but most of the changes have been good. I am having a great time in the here and now. I never dreamed that at the age of 57 I would still have the capacity for the kind of fun I have in my life. Who woulda thunk that at my age I could scamper, giggling, down the hall toward the bedroom with a dominant man in pursuit?

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ORIGINAL: OrpheusAgonistes

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Also, in my 20s, I thought I always had to rebel, swim against the current to be authentic. In my 30s, I realised that I to be authentic, I had to disregard which direction the current was going and swim in the direction that was right for me, and that sometimes it would be easier (with the current) and other times it would be harder (against the current). As a result, I'm much less exhausted and enjoy a little floating ;-)

Ha ha, yeah.  That's a good way of putting it.  It's strange now looking back, because there was a time when I literally couldn't conceive of a future in which I'd hear a Clash song in a Jaguar ad and not take it personally, or have a discussion with a girlfriend's Republican father that didn't degenerate into name calling, or watch an inane high-budget comedy without worrying about what enjoying the film said about me as a person.  Not everything is an existential crisis, it isn't war all the time.  Some people learn this lesson at a much younger age than I did, but it's a relief to have (more or less) learned it.

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ORIGINAL: OrpheusAgonistes

Ha ha, yeah.  That's a good way of putting it.  It's strange now looking back, because there was a time when I literally couldn't conceive of a future in which I'd hear a Clash song in a Jaguar ad and not take it personally, or have a discussion with a girlfriend's Republican father that didn't degenerate into name calling, or watch an inane high-budget comedy without worrying about what enjoying the film said about me as a person.  Not everything is an existential crisis, it isn't war all the time.  Some people learn this lesson at a much younger age than I did, but it's a relief to have (more or less) learned it.

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That's excellent.  I often wonder what aging will do to my interests and appetites.  It's good to have reason for optimism that maturation won't necessarily change my idea of fun dramatically.

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Like you, I also blame gremlins.

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As for Rocking the Casbah in an XJ, oddly enough, there is this place that I hang out sometimes after work for a drink where you'll see people in business suits and quite likely hear a Dead Kennedys song or the like in the background. We're all grown up now!

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The one thing remarkably consistent has been my kinky urges and femdom side.  My fetishes have not changed all that much - the core ones.  My appetite hasn't decreased or increased, but remained steady.  And when I feel at the peak of desire for it, it's just as distracting and compulsive.

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ORIGINAL: ResidentSadist

Like you, I also blame gremlins.