Reposting from my old multiply blog after I (panicked today when I) realized I’ll turn 37 this year. This happened three decades ago but it feels like only yesterday. Noah turned 7 recently and I do wonder if / when he’ll have a moment like this.
I’ll always remember waking up the day I turned seven. It’s one of those rare, lucid moments that stay with you. It was a cool December morning in 1982 and the sun was shining just bright enough through the window so you could see dust floating serenely in its rays. When I was a kid, I liked to stare at the sun and then play with the residual images the glare would create when I shut my eyes. It must have been a Saturday because I stayed in bed just toying with the radiance in my mind and thinking. I can still hear the birds outside my window.
In bed on my 7th birthday, I remember the peculiar calm as I mused if this is how it felt to grow older. It was as if I could feel time wash over me, aging me. How will I be when I grow up? Who will I be? What’s going to happen to me? I had so many questions, but I felt a reassuring warmth from the sunlight and the quiet that bathed the room.
I thank God for the memory of that moment which anchors me as I ask those same questions — and more — every single day. Time is slow to reveal the answers. So here I am. Still that seven year old kid, unsure and uncertain, but quietly aware as I wait for life to unfold its beautiful, unending possibilities. Â