Some days

We all grow up. 

Being away for long, and then coming back has it's difference.

Kids who used to line up for piggy back rides and tickles are now running around and playing ball. They catch me glancing their way and from their expressions I see the neurons in their brains slowly click-- they finally recognize who the girl in the thick rimmed glasses is, and smile at the recognition, and wave. 

We -a boy who used to insist on following me home after Sunday School to play and I- meet halfway. I ask about school. He tells me he hates the homework and points out his new glasses. I tell him to soak it in, to enjoy the comfort of home and work towards greater things that are yet to come because every day spent is another day closer to being away from home; and no one told us that-- or at least we chose to shake it off our minds and shoulders, because we just didn't understand what that meant. 

He tells me he wants to grow up and that his glasses are a pain. I tell him I want to turn back to his age, and remind him again that that pair of glasses makes him no less handsome. 

I bite my tongue as I am about to start telling him of what's it's like being away from home and how life can be tough. Because probably right now at this point of his life tough would mean having to finish the endless piles of work, memorizing his spelling or needing to constantly push his glasses up his nose while playing football, while his friends push him around for being the only kid in glasses in class (I tell him glasses are now tools to make fashion statements, but he didn't look too convinced). Just like how we thought something was impossibly big and terrifying at some point of our lives, we soon come to see that it comes behind us. He will grow up and he will see, and he might handle things better than I did and do. Everyday, we grow up. 

So I tell him to take each day as it comes and wish him a good week. No exchange of bear hugs this time, because he's already a boy much more grown up than the last I saw him. There is this pang of unsettlement, because deep down I miss swinging him in the air and playing piggy back. 

But he's grown up now. 

This was all inspiring. Mildly heartbreaking (how selfish of me) but wholly thought provoking. Have I grown up too? By how much? Do I grow everyday? On whose strength? His, who made me, or mine? 

It's pretty exciting-- this journey that we're on. Uncertain in all it's ways; a test of faith. But exciting all the same.