I found a box the other day, up in the attic, all dusty and pushed behind some old Christmas decorations and a broken vacuum cleaner, and I almost just left it there but then I saw a bit of faded tape and my name scrawled on it in that messy teenage handwriting and something just made me pull it out, even though it was heavy, heavier than it looked, and my back isn't what it used to be and I thought oh great, probably full of old school books or something equally useless that I just never bothered to throw out. And then I got it down, wrestled it down the pull-down ladder, and my wife was downstairs watching one of her shows, so I was alone with it, and I opened it up and there it was, right on top, an old photo album. And that's when it all hit me, like a brick to the head, because the first picture I saw, just sitting there, was me. And I mean ME, but not the me who gets up at 5am for work every day and worries about the mortgage and if the car's going to make it another year without some huge repair bill. This was ME, but with hair dyed black as a raven's wing, and a spiked dog collar, and eyeliner so thick it looked like I'd been punched, and a really dramatic pout, and I remembered exactly who I was then, this misunderstood vampire, this creature of the night, always complaining about the sun and how nobody *got* me. And I just sat there on the floor, my knees aching, and I flipped through the pages, and it was just picture after picture of that kid, that silly kid, pretending to be so dark and mysterious, and I just sort of… deflated. Because I remember the feeling, you know? That feeling of being so special, so different, like the world was just waiting to be changed by my profound sadness and my very important thoughts about how life was just, like, totally unfair, and my parents were so, like, clueless. And I remember my dad, coming home from the factory, smelling of oil and sweat, and he'd just look at me in my black velvet cape, which was actually just a cheap curtain I'd dyed myself, and he'd just sigh. He never yelled, just that sigh, and he'd say, "You got homework, kid?" and I'd just roll my eyes so hard I thought they'd get stuck. And now I'm him, basically, or I feel like I am. I'm the one sighing, the one worrying about bills, the one who just wants peace and quiet after a long day of making sure the shelves are stocked just right so people buy more of the stuff we don't really need. And I look at that kid, that confident, self-absorbed kid, and I just want to shake them, just say, "Listen, pal, enjoy it now, because it all goes so fast, and you're gonna blink and you'll be fifty-something and wondering where all that passion went, all that certainty." And I guess it's not really a confession, is it? More like just... a regret. A dull ache in the chest, watching that kid who thought they were so unique, so profound, when really, they were just lucky. Lucky to have parents who let them be so silly, lucky to have a roof over their head, lucky to not understand what real problems felt like. And I put the album back in the box, and the lid didn't quite close right, and I didn't push it back behind the vacuum. I just left it there, leaning against the wall, knowing my wife will probably ask about it later and I'll just shrug and say "Oh, just some old stuff," because what am I supposed to say, really? That I miss being a teenager who thought they were a vampire? It sounds ridiculous, even to me, and I just… I don't know.