Relate

I'm not alone in this: my children are growing older.

Everyone's children are growing older.


Maybe I notice it less with Jamie because he's only eleven, he's a boy - maybe I can understand him a little better. Maybe I understand Michaela just fine, she's stepping away from my daughter to her self. I know that's a constant change - I understand the idea of calculus, I just don't have a firm grasp on all the equations.

Michaela the teenage girl was Michaela my daughter this past weekend, and that memory will occupy a prominent spot on the shelves in my mind. She laughs, jokes, communicates fine with me, but there's the ever-whirring social mind of the teenage girl. A portion of herself is always maintaining her place in that context. And so be it. As long as she continues to adjust well to this ever-changing world, her ever-changing life,... so will I. And so will Jamie. And so will you.

I will keep my balance. And when those times push in, when the teenage girl is frustrated with her father, I will hold tight to the memory of the drive home from Rhinelander, when I played the letter game for control of the radio and talked and laughed with my daughter.