Check out that adorable picture of Mr. Handsome himself.  He’s sleeping with Brownie, his bear, next to his handy fall-from-bed preventer installed by his wary and cautious mother.  Thanks to that chinese-assembled, garage-sale-purchased lifesaving invention, I am able to write a blog, 20 years later, on the balcony of my apartment 500 miles from the place this photo was taken.  I remember that rail well, as I remember my first teddy bear, Brownie.  I remember the bed frame, the  Disney blanket, the flowery pillows, and those little red pajamas that I outgrew quicker than Mom could extend their size with scissors.

    So much about my childhood I remember, and so much I do not.  I sometimes wonder which specific experiences molded me into who I am now, and which ones were irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.  I make decisions every day that I’m sure are influenced by something I read, heard, or saw.  Which burnt finger keeps my hands off the stove?  Which one-on-one with Dad guides my ethics and informs me of the right decision?

    Life has been coming at me fast, and the milestones seem to come and go, just as if I were adhering to the basic human template.  First was high school. Then ended the year off that originally seemed an eternity away.  Next, I moved into my freshman dorm at VT, imagining that four years would last forever and that somehow, I would have the blessing of eternal youth.

    I remember stroking the bare cinderblock walls with my 19-year-old fingers and closing my eyes.  I imagined the posters that would soon be hung, the companion with whom I would bunk, the beer that would soak my tongue, and the girls...oh god the girls!  I would be the biggest thing anyone had ever seen (literally) and the city would soon be mine.

    What I remember most about that day was my perceived invincibility.  The chores of finding a job, getting married, raising children -- hell, even taking it easy with the drinking -- never seemed applicable.  I had the human seniority to move away from Mom and Dad, but I lacked the maturity to accept my mortality as a reality.  I, Scott Bliss, would be the only soul to escape death.  I, Scott Bliss, was special.

    Today, I have a good job.  Today, I vote Republican.  Today, I have a prospect for a fiance. Today, I even have a stack of books replacing the stack of cheap beer cans that would have most definitely been in its stead a few short years ago.  I’m finding that some wonderful things appear with age, while some other wonderful things fade.

    Sometime this year I outgrew my foolish thoughts.  Maybe my Personal Health textbook did the trick with its chapter entitled, “Planning for Your Death.”  Maybe it was the constant slew of horror stories in the news describing the barbaric slayings of Americans in the Middle East.  Whatever it was, it sunk in and wouldn’t dissolve.  My immortal perceptions were simply a memory.

    But the process of aging, with its joys, brings unwanted closure to some fond memories.  Like a newly paralyzed man who says to himself, “I’ll never walk again,” or “I’ll never have sex again,” I, too, think of once innate characteristics of my younger self that I will never again possess.  The honest belief that my life would be eternal empowered the seemingly infinite security that existed in both good times and in bad.

    Though I will never again feel that absolute sense of immortality and peace, I hope to find it vicariously in the eyes of my future children through the lens of my camera, and share it with the world.  No power is greater than the idea and believe of life without end.