Growing pain

The first time I felt like I was grown up, was right now. When I realized that my childhood best friends had both flown the nest, so far that home was no longer easy access. More than a 2 hour ferry ride. More than a 3 hour drive. More than a 40 minute flight. I’ve never really pictured life or memories in this way, but suddenly they’re tucked away in a chest under a bed. But what if I want to swim, at our old spots, in the summer, in the heat. These things and places that have not been ours for years, but to which now would feel foreign without the knowing pace of each other on our way there. I try to tune into gratitude as a daily practice but suddenly I worry I was not tuned in enough over the years. And it’s all okay, in fact it’s good. It’s flight, a perpetual movement forward. It’s growing up, it’s love, it’s keeping each other close even at a distance. It’s The Lumineers in my car speakers, the same speakers that played the same songs all those years ago. All the same uncertain for all different things. It’s new songs that remind me of old memories. There are sunsets and long drives, there are patios and glasses of wine and shots of tequila. Before and beyond and forever. There is my parents front door to which there will always be keys, we all hold, and a place to which you will never have to knock.