My how we grow

A few years back (has it really been five already???) I wrote a paper in my senior composition class at SJSU. The topic matter was about simple pleasures and I actually wrote about abandoning homework to play in the lush summer grass with a child and a dog. And I managed to get an A. Nice, huh? But it was true. Sunday nights during weekend visits at home in the spring in late summer, I would always have a hard time finishing homework or packing the car to leave. I was always drawn to the silly fun my bother and I had with our sweet little dog and the seven-year old neighbor next door. Sometimes we just ran around, sometimes we actually organized a game of wiffle ball and picked up players of all ages around the neighborhood. It was such a guilty pleasure to be out in the early or late summer season evening, to feel the coolness of the night air and the softness of the grass beneath my feet. (Official wiffle ball footwear includes flip flops or nothing, in case you were wondering.) I knew I had other things I needed to be doing, and I would be up until the wee hours of the morning back in my apartment in San Jose finishing up what I ignored earlier. But I didn't care. I was out with my favorite people in the world. Family, friends, and the coolest little kid in the world. Haley.

I first met Haley when I was 16 on the day she came home from the hospital. My newest next door neighbor, and the daughter of my own childhood baby-sitter (also one of my favorite people in the world). I think I loved her instantly. From then on she became sort of an adopted baby sister to my brother and me. We spent hours playing with her, teasing her, laughing with her. For a long time, she would do whatever we told her. Although I miss those days, I am glad she now has a mind of her own! Watching her grow up as I struggled through my teenage years, then early adulthood, now real-life adulthood really put a lot of perspective on things that maybe I wouldn't have understood otherwise.

So tonight, we relieved those old silly days (the guilty pleasure days) from my college years. The bats and the wiffle balls came out after dinner with the folks and we had a great time laughing and just being silly. We hadn't done this in YEARS! Funny how after college graduation with the guilt being gone, the games died out. Is it because we don't appreciate things as much when they aren't slightly forbidden? I don't know, but it felt great to be out there again, barefoot and laughing. Haley needed it as well. She is 12 now, and she is beginning to feel the weight of the world (in adolescent terms anyway). And... she starts junior high school tomorrow morning. My 'baby' is going to a big world in the morning. She is very nervous and I can completely sympathize, I remember being scared stiff the night before I went. She is even going to my old junior high. She got a lot of pep talks tonight, and I hope she keeps her head up high. She has begun to remind me much of myself when I was 12. Even though nothing scared me more than the big new school, I did ok myself. But sometimes it is very hard to watch someone grow so much before your eyes. But I am proud of her, and I will be thinking of her all day tomorrow... She has got a lot of heart and I think she will be okay in her big new world.

I think I just grew up a bit myself.

~Wildflower