Stages

Life plays itself out in stages. The earliest stage from which I've retained potent memories involved my maternal grandparents, with whom I spent an inordinate amount of time. My father would have needed to be present more to qualify as a stage. Same for his parents. From them I've taken away snapshots, as opposed to the feature films of other aspects of my life.
These phases necessarily pollute one another, though they retain separate identities. Sometimes I circle back to a previous phase and get momentarily confused about which phase I'm really in. Phase confusion. Like when you meet someone you used to know or a childhood friend. But all the intervening stuff has changed me, so as much as I might feel nine years old again when I see that boyhood friend, the feeling proves fleeting. Maybe people don't really come full circle unless they're infirm. You get old, you lose control of bodily functions, you regress cognitively. Then you're coming full circle. But, otherwise, the accumulation of life's travails and joys and learning experiences forever preclude you from a return to ignorance or bliss.
I recently experienced a stage overlap. My mother, having lost part of her brain to a stroke, for the time being resides in a facility about a quarter-mile from the one in which I underwent electroconvulsive therapy. To visit her, I went past the place where I spent, I think, three weeks. Before trying to locate her new residence, I wouldn't have been able to get back to my ECT place. So I pulled into the parking lot of that place, and I saw myself standing outside the door smoking a cigarette 16 years ago. Where does the time go. For a brief instant, I occupied that space and time again, and then I pushed it away. Buried for the time being in its own compartment.
Now the stage has changed, but every once in a while I feel the tug of a preceding one. I have children. If there were a waiting period to have children while the authorities did a background check, like there is for a gun, would I have been allowed to have children? We're sorry, but you're way too fucked up to have children. I don't think I could buy a gun, but kids, all I needed was a partner. And who would be those authorities who decide whether someone else can have a child? The Supreme Court? Three generations of imbeciles is enough? Catholics? Protestants? Atheists? Me and you and a dog named Boo? Because sometimes it seems like the inmates are running the asylum. Sometimes I look at the kids and the house and myself and wonder how I could be the same person. ECT isn't like having a wart removed. If nothing else, there's a psychological residue.
Some phases appear to be a function of age. As a young man, sports played a prominent role. I outgrew that, but now my kids' involvement has reignited a certain passion that had lain dormant. Stage confusion again. Except now I'm not as physically capable. So the intervening years have influenced the extent to which I can immerse myself in what at one time had been an integral part of life.
The stage that has the longest-lasting impact has to be the one in which people live with their parents. It never ends for some, but for most, it's a stage that consumes an influential chunk of time and contains numerous substages. These substages sometimes give rise to parent-child conflict. Like experimenting with drugs and drink and contending with hormones. I suppose some skip the drugs and drink part. Other people get tattoos and dye their hair pink. Whatever. Burgeoning independence provides a transitional time in which we're transferring to another stage. College, for some, offers this opportunity. Then comes marriage, or just living on one's own. And divorce. Or having kids. Then you have to start paying attention to stuff that previously didn't register, like shit that's fucked up for people over a certain age.
So, what's the next stage. No way to know, I suppose.
Funny that my mother is losing her mind right up the street from where mine lost me for a while.