If youth but knew

If you asked me if I would like to look younger I would undoubtedly answer in the affirmative. I would particularly love to have my hair back; when I actually had hair I wasted it. I never dyed it or permed it or even wore a pony tail. I get annoyed when I see young lads with shaved heads. "You might be bald for most of your life!", I think to myself, "Grow it back you idiot!" Grey hair I can deal with better, salt and pepper works as a look just as long as there's plenty of pepper and not too much salt.
I wouldn't like to be younger though. For me my thirties have been an oasis of calm compared to the emotional instability of my twenties. I remember when I was about 27 talking to my brother about the ten best events of my life and ten worst events of my life. At that time almost every great experience involved drinking and partying and plenty of the worst experiences involved drinking too. Maybe you just revise your priorities as you get older but now none of my top ten best ever experiences would be overtly linked to drinking though almost all my worst experiences would be.
I think that getting married and having a family has given my life an anchor that it never had before that. I was a very rootless person, always building things up only to smash them up in due course and move on. It has taken me almost all of my nearly 37 years to actually start to be myself. The biggest thing I have let go of is the tendency I had to really fight to maintain relationships that would otherwise maybe have faded away. If people want to be with me they know where to find me, if they don't there is no point in forcing things. As they say in French say "If youth but knew, if old age but could."