Because it’s a shock to suddenly have a kid who is 18 and technically no longer a kid. He can’t buy alcohol, but he can vote. And he’s graduated high school. Signed up to take online college courses starting in a few weeks. Finishing up mission papers. Looking for that first job.
Maybe we could be doing better by him. By all our kids.
There are times maybe I think I don’t know them all that well, that we need to talk more.
There are times maybe I think we’ve talked too much.
I remember this 18-year-old kid as a toddler, following me around our new home in Sugar City. He wasn’t quite two, but I set him to work watering the apple trees. He loved to play with the hose, to watch the water bubble out, and to pretend to put gasoline in his little car with it. When he wasn’t filling the gas tank with my screwdrivers.
I remember him following me around saying “shit shit shit” after he heard his dad say the word in the shed.
I miss that shed.
Oh do I miss that shed.
And that kid.
Never quite believed my mother when she said if she had to do it all over again with her little kids, she’d do it, no hesitation.Maybe this is an inkling of discovering that feeling in myself.
My brothers and sisters, too, are looking to the past. Seeing old photos of us all looking young and wondering when they look in the mirror who these old folks are.
Mom and Dad are gone.
We’re the responsible ones now.
And in a way, that’s a scary thought.
Responsible for our own versions of little us, who aren’t technically so little anymore.
Feeling a little like Buzz Lightyear. Worrying that the hat doesn’t look good.
Not quite at the Statler and Waldorf part of life, but getting closer.
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