Good, but not great; decent, but not bad. If my life were a train ride, I’d say I’ve spent forty years rumbling along the tracks, unsure of where I’m headed but always moving forward. My journey has been filled with missed stops, unexpected detours, and many freight cars packed with regrets trailing behind me.

As a tween and teenager, I found myself at Spencer’s Gifts in every mall that had one, always eager for an escape from that train ride. Spencer’s was the store equivalent of jumping off the tracks and sneaking into an R-rated movie before you were of legal age. They were famous for their posters, graphic T-shirts, blacklight-themed decor, and cashiers who sported their best Goth look while being irritated with every customer’s audacity to breathe the same oxygen.

Old habits die hard, of course, so this past spring, when I came across a Spencer’s, I had no choice but to check out how the store has evolved since the late twentieth century.

One of the first graphic tees I saw hanging on the wall was bright red with white lettering, which read: “Don’t Bully Me, I’ll Cum.” It may be the best shirt I’ve seen in my forty years.

I was there to find a specific section I remember from my teenage years, so I browsed the store while “Believe” by Disturbed played over the speakers. I paused momentarily to confirm that my jeans hadn’t turned into the baggy, carpenter jeans designed by Tommy Hilfiger I wore in the late nineties.

As I wandered through Spencer’s, it felt like I had stopped the train for a moment, stepping back into a time when I was blissfully unaware of how fast that train would start picking up speed. I came across the posters, which, to my pleasant surprise, have yet to be updated since the early 2000s. There were posters of the Playboy logo, Scarface, Pulp Fiction, 2Pac, Sublime, The Smashing Pumpkins, and the timeless Pink Floyd “Back Catalogue.”

The blacklight section is still adorned with blacklight mushroom candles and sculptures positioned directly next to the lava lamps.

As I continued searching for the section I was looking for, I came to the store’s back wall, and I froze as I took it all in, mouth and eyes both open wide.

“Do you want me to get something down for you?”

“What? No. No. No, thank you. Just lookin’,” I said to the twenty-year-old sales associate as she glared at me with a look aimed at informing me I had indeed been breathing too much of her oxygen.

The back wall of Spencer’s was adorned with hundreds of sex toys ranging in sizes from beginner to, err, expert(?).

I turned my back to the wall of sex and was faced with the novelty bachelor/bachelorette party gifts. While turning to stare at gummies and straws in the shape of penises wasn’t the exact escape I was looking for, it was an improvement from having a twenty-year-old offer to get a giant dildo down from the top row of the sex wall.

I found the remnants of the section I was looking for next to the “Pin the Junk on the Hunk” poster game.

There was a tiara with “Birthday Bitch” on it, a shot glass with the words “Birthday Bitch” printed on it, and a glitter-colored wine glass that read “Birthday Bitch.”

In high school, the birthday section was stocked with “over-the-hill” gag gifts full of sophomoric humor. I remember seeing a cane with a horn attached to the handle and emergency adult diapers packaged behind a thin piece of plastic with “In Case Of Emergency, Break Glass.” These products were not as sophisticated as adding “Birthday Bitch” to drinkware, but they can’t all be winners.

As I laughed at jokes built from the lowest common denominator with my friends, I would also imagine my life when I turned forty.

Where will I be living? Will I have any of the same friends? Will I have children? What will my hair look like? These are the thoughts that would run through my mind as I rode along the train tracks of youth, oblivious to the steep hills and sharp turns ahead.

I would never have a specific goal in mind because my perception of life has been that I am on a train driven by an unknown conductor headed to an unknown destination. If I am kind, polite, and well-behaved, the conductor will give me a little extra time at stops along the way and, at minimum, will keep the bar cart sufficiently stocked.

Regrets? They fill the freight cars added to the end of my train, trailing behind as I ride the iron rails of this journey through life. Those cars are heavy and without brakes. They make the climb up hills taxing and the trips down perilous. The heaviest car among them is filled with the realization that I could’ve taken the highway.

When the tracks run parallel, I often find myself in my observation car, face pressed to the glass in awe at the freedom people in their vehicles have to stop at roadside attractions or take an exit they hadn’t planned.

If only someone would have written a song in the early nineties informing me that life is, in fact, a highway.

As I imagined my forty-year-old self in a dimly lit store reading gag birthday cards about impotence, I felt desperation for the confidence and knowledge that comes with being that old. I longed for a “boring” life as an adult filled with more certainty than uncertainty.

I wish so desperately that I was writing to inform you that I have finally made it. I would tell you this piece was written from a place of certainty and peace about the man I have become. I’d say to you that those silly self-conscious thoughts were due to the hormones racing through my body, and I am comfortable with myself.

I might make fun of myself for caring so deeply about what people thought of me, both in appearance and as a person. Or, I’d write out prolific life lessons I’ve gotten along the way that would provide you with an unexpected “aha” moment, leading to the last change you needed to round out your already wonderful life.

Instead, while my body has not escaped the effects of the passage of time, my brain hasn’t aged a day.

I know this because I am desperate for your approval, literally. All I want to do right now is give up and leave the words I have written saved in a document as “Untitled 11.” As a forty-year-old, I live my life desperate for a like or share on social media or even a minor compliment as a clue I haven’t completely fucked up my entire life by believing I could make a career from writing.

When those feelings bubble up, my train can become a lonely place. The dark outside makes it difficult to believe I am heading in the right direction. My instincts tell me to pull the emergency brake and get off before the entire thing derails.

Every time I reach for the brake, I am stopped.

The one thing my teenage self was sure of was that my train ride would be much more fun if I had someone on board with me.

Her name is Jenni, and I asked her aboard at 8:05 AM on October 8, 1999.

I couldn’t believe she got on then, and every day, I am equally astonished that she is still here. Because, of course, she doesn’t belong here. She should be on the highway or up in the air on one of those jets I see soaring in all directions.

Yet, no matter how many times I have pointed out these superior options to her over the past twenty-five years, she tells me she loves our train.

She stokes the burners when those cars full of regret start to slow us down. When we sit beside each other in the observation car, she points out the beautiful scenery past the highway. And when we head to the bar car, she makes the people on the road wish they were on our train.

Regardless of how many cars full of regret I have acquired over the years, I would still walk back down the mountains and valleys, through storms and sunshine, and across the two-and-a-half decades to find my fifteen-year-old self and hug him.

I’d hug him because having the courage to ask Jenni aboard this train feels like the most crucial decision of my life.

Over the past twenty-five years, she has brought me our two wonderful children, millions of smiles and laughs, and got me through some of the darkest times of my life.

I apologize if you came here looking for the answers about being an adult I was starving to find inside Spencer’s gifts all those years ago. I wish I had a manual or even the hubris to pretend I have the wisdom to write one, but I don’t.

All I’ve got is this:

However, you choose to travel through this life, whether by plane, train, or automobile, don’t do it alone.

Do it with someone who laughs with you. Do it with someone who cries with you. Do it with the person who knows moving forward is just as important, if not more so, than moving in the exact right direction.

My beard has white hair now, I think hard before doing any physical activity, and I have started to squint while trying to read a menu in a dimly lit restaurant.

But when I look into Jenni’s eyes and she smiles at me, I am a fifteen-year-old again whispering, “Will you go out with me?” into her ear.

Twenty-five years later, if I shut my eyes and listen hard, I can still hear the echo of her whispering, “Yes.”

New trains with faster engines and modern accommodations leave the station every day. It’s easy to watch them zip by and think the trip would be better on a new train.

However, if I do have a bit of wisdom from these forty years, it’s that each time I have taken an opportunity to tour these trains to see what I’m missing, I walk away muttering a phrase only an old guy would coin:

“They sure don’t make ‘em like they used to.”

So, if you need us, we’ll be in the bar car dancing to and singing our favorite songs. We won’t know where we’re headed, but everyone is welcome, and Jenni will make sure it’s the ride of your life.

Cheers.