I was reading the other day about Emile Locard and his peculiar theory of fifty years ago called Locard's Exchange Principle. The principle theorized (as theories do) that any person entering a room will leave something behind and take something else away, whether they know it or not.
And as I read this, I realized that the theory could be expanded on the cosmic scale and related to the way we humans pass through days or even lifetimes. For example, that day I learned how to ride a tractor, and of course I learned about a certain criminologist named Emile Locard.
As I passed through what may be the 700 some odd thousandth day of my life, I learned something new. And what did I leave behind, besides a little more lint and dirty clothes on the ground? I left one piece more of my youth and wonder. Hey, nobody said it was necessarily an even trade.
Unavoidably, every day we take another step away from childhood and closer to adulthood. The changes are slight of course; there are no great awakenings into maturity, no diplomas of graduation, many times they pass us by unknowingly. Wisdom is gathered like dust settling on a window. The changes can be as small as learning the difference between good and well, or as pithy as learning how to sew a button on a shirt.
There are times all of us share though, that we can point to and say, "See! That is a sign we are growing older," like when we first learn that Santa Claus doesn't exist. A fact I try to resist accepting, because as I pass through life day by day, room by room, picking stuff up and putting things away, I think, wouldn't it be nice to save just a little bit of that carefree stardust of which youth is made?
