Five years from now, You will be impossibly young, Unthinkably healthy, And quick as a worn abacus.
Strange, how brief it sounds, five winters, five summers— a blink of a calendar page.
Yet look back five years and you see another self: a softer jaw, a body that hadn’t yet learned its current aches, a mind that carried different obsessions.
Five years is a sentence, a scar, a new friend gone gray. It is a book read through, a dog grown slow, a child who no longer asks to be carried.
Five years from now you will glance back again, startled by the distance in so small a span.
I tried the usual tricks: a hot shower with music too loud for neighbors, a scribble in the notebook that went nowhere, even the thought of a quick drive just to change the view.
None of it worked. The mood clung like static.
That’s when I thought of ice cream for some reason. I am not a dairy guy, even ice cream.
But yesterday the craving struck deep, and not just any ice cream: a Good Humor strawberry shortcake bar. The kind the ice-cream man sold in Detroit when I was a kid.
I hadn’t thought of those in years, but the memory rose whole; the bell, the truck, the sprint down the block with a bill sweating in my hand.
And I decided: fine. I’ll chase that memory. I’ll buy the ice cream bar. Hell, I am a grown man. I’ll buy TWO ice cream bars.
I told you, “Let’s go for a ride,” and both of you snapped into readiness. You leapt into the back without question or hesitation, and we were off.
We drove to the corner 7-Eleven. I left you both in the car. Your faces followed me through the glass.
Inside, straight to the freezer case, hand reaching before my brain caught up. I don’t remember how much they cost; they could have been 20 bucks a pop. I didn’t care.
What I do remember is the choice. The choice to do something small, concrete, and selfish.
When I stepped back outside, there you were. Jadie, with your deep mocha gaze; Charlie, your nose smudging the window, panting a grin.
And that’s when the mood cracked. I saw it plain: I don’t get to carry my bad days alone.
You depend on me. You look to me for steadiness, the way I used to look for that ice-cream truck. I’m your constant, and the weight of that is also the lift. You pulled me back without a word.
We drove home slower. We watched baseball. You ate every crumb that fell off the bars, licked both wrappers clean.
You only needed the moment. I needed the moment.
You didn’t just fix my day. You reminded me the ice-cream man still comes, if you’re willing to chase him.
Somethin’ filled up My heart with nothin’ Someone told me not to cry
Now that I’m older My heart’s colder And I can see that it’s a lie
Children, wake up Hold your mistake up Before they turn the summer into dust
If the children don’t grow up Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up We’re just a million little god’s causin’ rain storms Turnin’ every good thing to rust I guess we’ll just have to adjust
With my lightnin’ bolts a-glowin I can see where I am goin’ to be When the reaper he reaches and touches my hand
With my lightnin’ bolts a-glowin’ I can see where I am goin’ With my lightnin’ bolts a-glowin’ I can see where I am go, goin’
