I can remember a Sunday back when I was maybe 12 or 13.  My brother and I, along with the Cully boys, roamed through the fields down around the old Mullagh Church near our home.  It was dry that day, but it must have rained the previous night because I can remember all of us getting wet.  There was a field of barley right beside the church and we had waded through it.  We were soaked to the waist with the wet crop and I can remember wanting to go home shortly after that, when the chill started to set in.

The Mullagh Church had been burnt down by Vikings back in ye goode olde days (or so I was often told).  They still used the burial ground at the church and I can remember being fascinated by all the old headstones going back to the 1600s and 1700s.  The last person to be buried there was a young soldier, a member of the Enniskillen Dragoons, who was killed in the Great War.  He was 18 when he died, and I can remember thinking that he was quite old at the time of his demise.

I know different now though.  18 is nothing in terms of life experience.  I doubt he ever had many ups and downs.  He definitely didn't raise a family and he might never have fallen in love.  Imagine never having that experience; to never look at someone and have every fibre in your being crave them - just to be in their company and wanting every second to last for an hour.  To be stricken down and to cease at 18 is a cruel travesty.

I had long hair at 18, jet black and as straight as a Red Indian's.  All I cared about back then was my grades, my music and my awesomeness.  Awesomeness is a bit of a all-encompassing term, but I can't think of another way to describe the general feeling of being utterly self-involved and feeling like every single tiny event was a huge deal.  My buying of a CD was, in my mind, more important than my parents buying a car.  My leather jacket was of more significance than a middle-aged person's life insurance policy.

Oh how things change though.  Life has a way of beating the snot out of you.  Snot meaning vibrant, youthful narcissism, of course.

Anyway, that is all.  I should probably brush my teeth and get to bed.  Tomorrow is already here and I have church to deal with and whatever other dross I'm assaulted with.

Awesome youths.