We Store Our Youth Within Us

50th

25th

 

I had a wonderful time at my 50th high school reunion.  However, it was so strange to see these men and women I knew as young and lithe with color in their hair and smooth taut skin...

Some of them I did not recognize at first. Then, looking deeply into their faces, I saw the young faces still in there - the eyes, nose, and mouth revealed them.

Joseph Conrad said this:

“We wander in our thousands over the
face of the earth, the illustrious and the obscure, earning beyond the
seas our fame, our money, or only a crust of bread; but it seems to me
that for each of us going home must be like going to render an account.
We return to face our superiors, our kindred, our friends--those whom we
obey, and those whom we love; but even they who have neither, the most
free, lonely, irresponsible and bereft of ties,--even those for whom
home holds no dear face, no familiar voice,--even they have to meet the
spirit that dwells within the land, under its sky, in its air, in its
valleys, and on its rises, in its fields, in its waters and its trees--a
mute friend, judge, and inspirer.”
― Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim    


I don't know the author of this one, but I like it:

“They waited awhile before lighting the candles; the gloom allowed the past to slip cozily into the present. But the memories were of a time that was gone and didn't overshadow the present. But the memories were vivid, and they made the friends feel both young and old...When Chrsitanne finally lit the candles and they saw one another clearly again, she was happy to see in the old faces of the others the young faces they had come across in their memories. we store our youth within us, we can go back to it and find ourselves in it, but it is past--melancholy filled their hearts, and sympathy, for one another and for themselves.”
― The Weekend

and this:

The thing is, when you see your old friends, you come face to face with yourself. I run into someone I've known for 40 or 50 years, and they're old. And I suddenly realize I'm old. It comes as an enormous shock to me.
 Polly Bergen
 

I have been searching for a quote I heard a year or so ago, and I can't find it, and I can't quite replicate it. I  says something about being able to see one's younger self reflected in the eyes of one's old friends.  I felt that at this reunion.