The New Will Replace The Old

Who doesn’t like new things?

Well, I do and I don’t. There is nothing more enjoyable than unwrapping something new. Sure, new socks are a little less enjoyable to open than opening a box containing a new computer or a new camera, but new is new. I am getting older so new stuff isn’t the huge thrill that it once was. The reason is that I have most of what I want and need, everything is just a different new.

I can remember how excited I was when my mom and dad bought me a new pair of running shoes. I would race up and down the aisles in the shoe store while we decided which ones were the fastest. I would always wear my new running shoes home and I’d run ahead and then run back, showing mom and dad just how fast their son was. I guess I really wasn’t that fast, but I felt fast in those brand new shoes.

When I was a little older, I got a kick out of opening a new bottle of coke, watching the tiny bubbles escaping out the opening and the taste of those bubbles would be the first thing that hit my tongue. I loved opening a chocolate bar as well. I know that coke and candy bars aren’t technically new, but it was something that I would look forward to.

Being a child of the sixties, I just loved spending hours and hours looking at album covers in the record store trying to figure out if this particular album was worth putting my three bucks down. Of course there were certain albums that were obviously worth it, but they weren’t as exciting to open as an unheard of band. Popular or unknown, it was an awesome feeling to get home and peel the cellophane off of the cardboard cover to reveal that shiny black disk. I would put it on the record player and sit down with the cover on my lap while the music surrounded me. Sometimes the music was spectacular, sometimes just a few songs were good and other times the only thing good about the album was the cover. Oh well!

Lately I have been buying things and keeping them in the package for a while. I bought a pair of running shoes in Las Vegas and didn’t wear them for two years until I needed them. I don’t know why, I suppose the idea of having a new pair of shoes I could wear any time I wanted to appealed to me for some reason. I have a couple of pair of underwear still in the package that I bought last summer. They are boxer briefs which aren’t my normal style, but I thought they might feel better somehow. They didn’t feel better, they just feel different.

When I bought my last pair of glasses, it was a two for one sale and I choose to get a pair of prescription sunglasses as the second pair. I have another pair of sunglasses so the new ones just sit in the car waiting for me to wear them. I guess I like the idea of a new pair of back up sunglasses. Maybe there is a place in my mind that believes unused sunglasses indicate a successful life. Maybe…

I just bought a new pair of glasses and have yet to wear them more than a handful of times. I am told that I look better in them than I do in the old glasses. I kind of resent the new glasses for pointing out that I haven’t looked my best for two or three years. Thanks new glasses! It has been a couple of weeks now, so I suppose that I will have to start to wear the new ones, especially since the old glasses have this really irritating scratch right in my field of vision. Eventually, the new will replace the old.