My daughter is off to college tomorrow. Unbelievable. In fact your brain does not believe it but your heart knows. How did eighteen years slip by? I remember when my daughter was a baby and we were laying in the hammock and my neighbor came up and took a picture. I just want to take a picture of this. My son just left for college she explained. This was after my wife and I watched she and her husband hug their son in front of their loaded up car. I even said, that will be us one day but of course I didn't believe it.
The same way I didn't believe the man who passed my son and I eating chips on a bench. He was probably five at the time. Enjoy it, it goes fast he said. Yeah sure. But you don't really get it. I watched other families slowly get smaller and listened to friends talking about the empty nest. I watched my neighbor practically never come home from work after their son left and I often wondered why he would work so late every night but of course now I know.
And in my office are these strange artifacts to childhood. Pictures my daughter did in grade school if not kindergarten. Pictures that curled on the wall that now have to go lest they become constant arrows of the heart. Or the old swing set in the backyard! I realize now like most writers I have been playing with time, freezing it, delaying the inevitable.
Now... it is my turn to face the truth.
The same way I didn't believe the man who passed my son and I eating chips on a bench. He was probably five at the time. Enjoy it, it goes fast he said. Yeah sure. But you don't really get it. I watched other families slowly get smaller and listened to friends talking about the empty nest. I watched my neighbor practically never come home from work after their son left and I often wondered why he would work so late every night but of course now I know.
And in my office are these strange artifacts to childhood. Pictures my daughter did in grade school if not kindergarten. Pictures that curled on the wall that now have to go lest they become constant arrows of the heart. Or the old swing set in the backyard! I realize now like most writers I have been playing with time, freezing it, delaying the inevitable.
Now... it is my turn to face the truth.
