When you’re five you don’t realize how time flies. Growing up seems so slow and steady even though you’re in a rush. Then you’re blowing out 18 candles and marrying your high school crush.
Your life begins in an instant and adulthood hits you with a crash. You graduate from college and life passes in a flash. You settle into a nine to five and pray for a good paycheck so you can really begin your life. Now you’re buying a house and painting the guest bedroom blue; you’re learning to be parents and begin anew. You bring your baby home and before you know it four years have come and gone.
Now you’re signing your heart up for school and you’re thinking to yourself, “Well at least we have the Summer,” but the summer comes and goes, and you’re walking him into his preschool class and giving him goodbye kisses on the nose. You wave to him until the door closes between you, then you sit in your car with teary eyes. You call his daddy and begin to cry. You contemplate if you should run back in and take him home. You never prepared yourself to be alone.
You wait for the bell to ring and you’re the first car in line at three o’clock. You think he’s going to bust through the doors and jump into your arms, but he does not. Instead, he walks out with a snaggle tooth smile and mustard on his shirt. He tells you about his day and his new friends and how his teacher called him squirt. Then he says, “I hope tomorrow gets here sooner than later,” and with every passing day there’s new finger paint memories that cover your refrigerator.
You want these days to last forever, but they don’t. They squeeze by in a wink and you’re trying to remember the last time he’s climbed into your arms to be rocked to sleep. You can’t recall the exact moment you last carried him up the stairs or put him down because now he’s independent and is nowhere to be found. Your heart breaks without knowing how time could slip by so fast, you thought it would go easy on you because your love was so vast.
Now he’s sixteen and wants his space. He stays locked to a screen and can’t wait to get his own place. He’s getting his license and saving for a truck. He’s gone every weekend and you miss him too much. He’s just like you were at this age - reaching for 18 so he can turn the page. But you know the world will eat him alive and you’re reminded of all the heart to hearts your Momma used to try… “You’re gonna miss this,” she’d say, and you do, and you know he will too. You want so badly just to hold onto him tight but he’s slipping through your fingertips. He’s ready to fly.
In a moment, two years have come and gone and he’s really saying goodbye. He’s graduating and it feels like yesterday that you were dropping him off at pre-k, choking back the tears, trying not to cry. You look at the young man that you raised and see the little boy who loved the color blue and used to pick you dandelion bouquets. He’s packing up his things and heading out north. The real world takes him in, and you hope it’s with warmth. You hug him tight, and 18 years’ worth of the feelings come rushing through. He takes off, now time flies for him the same way it did for you.
