Thirteen

It is inevitable.  Progress.  Decay.   They are two sides of the same coin and you are still too young to understand this.  You know only the possible and you make your own realities on a daily basis, regardless of the laws of gravity, or the laws of special relativity, or even the laws of common sense.  Your dreams are new and palpable, and who am I to tell you that dreams can’t come true.  Because they can.  Somedays you even make an old skeptic like me believe. 

I try to thread the line between warning you off from reaching too high… afraid the sun might melt your wings off and you will fall to earth… and letting your balloon rise and rise out of sight and out of my reach.   That day of you being out of my sight will come all too soon.  And regardless of whether it results in an eventually fall, there can be no doubt now that your star is in ascending like a rocket.

You have always been ahead of the curve.  You rolled over early.  You walked early.  You talked early.  You read early.  You outpaced your peers in every way.  Until you were forced to pick peers that were years ahead of you.  And still they call you for help and tutoring.  And yet you are only beginning to grasp how remarkable you are.  Your humbleness is a more put on than it used to be… before it was because you knew no better.  But now you do know better, and know that you are better.  So humble is sometime more of challenge than it once was.

I’ve noticed other changes that are inevitable.  You are longer.  And the skinny arms are becoming muscled.  Not fast enough for you.  But too fast for me.  And as always when you reach a milestone, I quietly search your pictures and remember you as you were in the blink of eye.  Your eyes are still as big, and still as startling blue.  But now you are beginning to grasp the power of your eyes to disarm, whereas before they were wide eyed and truly innocent.  Not all of that has burned away.  But enough.  

Like all numbers, today is a simply that… an arbitrary marker along your path of days.  An anniversary that I remember like it was yesterday.  Yes… you were even born quickly… anxious to get into this world and start your work here.  But arbitrary as it might seem, it is a moment of cultural magnitude for you.   A moment when childhood decays, and manhood ascends.  

You will climb that ladder as you do all things… quickly, and without reservation… anxious to be on to the next phase.  And it is left to the rest of us to think about the trail you have blazed.   


Happy 13th birthday…