It’s amazing really. Growing up you become used to the world around you and in many respects you begin to take it for granted. Even if you don’t recognize it right away, you don’t see your surroundings.

Until they change.

As a child I must have seen hundreds of sunrises over the ocean. I’m an east coast boy who spent countless dawn hours at his grandparents’ house at the beach. But then I left. And I didn’t realize how special that sight was until I was landlocked in Western Pennsylvania. As a grown man I’ve had the opportunity to travel and see different places. As I write this I’m sitting in a rented sports car, wearing sunglasses, still dressed in business clothes, watching the sunset over San Francisco bay, the city skyline in the background. I have officially become one of the yuppies I silently didn’t want in my little coastal town while I was growing up.

Yet, I’m grown now, and those feelings have long since passed. As I watch the sunset I can’t help but recognize the changes in my life. While I once watched sunrise over the ocean as a child, here I am as an adult watching it set. I can look back and see the things about me that have changed, and in some ways pinpoint the moments which drove that change.

It makes me sad to realize that so much of my life is behind me. But I can only hope that I have more moments like this, recognizing what a great life it has been. Thinking about it that way, makes me smile. I have lots of sunsets in my future, and the knowledge that each of them needs to be special and cherished, even if I am wearing a dress shirt instead of overalls, and the kids here in skinny jeans and dreadlocks don’t want me here. I’ll smile and give them a few years to figure things out.

Someday they’ll get it. I know I do.