Paperwork: The past, present and future can be hard to pull apart

“Age 30 frightens me.”

That’s a direct quote from yours truly. It’s typed out. No hesitation.

It’s my candid answer to the question: “What is the perfect age?”

I was responding to a set of questions designed to help me get inside my own head and figure myself out, which seemed important at the time.

These were my thoughts and feelings in 1978, the year I turned 30. I had more to say about my fears ... and time.

“I feel something important must be accomplished by then,” I wrote. “This is foolish because I reject standards placed against people and their performance. Nevertheless, the fear is there.

“I, like probably everyone else, would like a second chance at my youth, but at the same time I have no real desire to freeze time on any given moment of my life.

“There are moments that I want not to end, but this just means I want such moments to be in the future days of my life also. There are too many new experiences, good and bad, that I’d have to give up to freeze my life at a given age.

“If there is a perfect age, I doubt that I have reached it yet.”

It’s interesting to listen to myself. Funny that now I truly am getting inside my head – when I was 30.

I remember facing that 30 threshold and not wanting to cross it. I felt I was falling short of personal goals and dreams. I now think that’s a common feeling at that time of life. Common and a bit sad.

I say sad as I focus my hindsight through the years since then. I laugh at myself now and say, “Oh, you silly boy.”

Because my 30s were amazing years full of change and challenge and growth. I was probably at my peak as a reporter and in 1978 I fell into the most important story I have ever worked on ... and continue to pursue.

And it was a time for a lot of reflection, which was why I was sitting at a typewriter and answering personal questions.

Questions like describing the perfect submarine sandwich or admitting my quirks and then listing 10 things I love in life the most.

“I do not have a favorite color, number, day or even person,” I wrote. “I shy away from either or decisions. But here are some things I love and wouldn’t want to give up [not in any order].”

My list totaled 17, starting with “laughing” and ending with “my family ... those who have taught me to love those things I have listed.”

I am tempted now to say that 30 or the 30s would be the perfect age. But my thinking has not changed that much. Freezing time at any age would close too many doors.

Still ... it would be great to be 30 again. Or 17. Or 21. Or any time when I could do things I cannot do so well anymore.

Perhaps now is a better time to answer that question, because I have many decades to assess – and what’s ahead is not a ballroom dance.

Some say the perfect time is always now. Not the past or the future. Well, I find that past, present and future kind of blend together. Sometimes it’s hard to pull them apart. But that’s probably because of where I’m at on the timeline.

So if I had to answer that question again, today, I would make a relevant revision. I’d start with a new opening line that would say it all.

“Age 80 frightens me.”

Lonny Cain, retired managing editor of The Times in Ottawa, also was a reporter for The Herald-News in Joliet in the 1970s. His Paperwork email is lonnyjcain@gmail.com. Or mail The Times, 110 W. Jefferson St., Ottawa, IL 61350.