Stodgy

I don’t remember growing old.

Now I don’t mean growing old in the physical sense of aching joints and sporadic memory;

I mean growing stodgy…
  where each day passes as just another day…
  where tomorrow is the day when the good things will happen
    and today is the day where I meet my responsibilities.

  “When I was a child I spoke as a child,
    I understood as a child,
      I thought as a child;
   but when I became a man I put away childish things." ¹

This is the wisdom of being an adult—responsibilities and obligations—commitments and deadlines.

And then…
  And then, later in life than most,
    I had a child.

At first he was just another commitment,
  a responsibility to love and instruct and care for.

Then he learned to speak…and worse, question:
  “Whah Zat?”
    “Why?”
      “Ice cream?”

No longer is life a string of commitments—
  it is a string of adventures.

My commute is no longer merely the trip to and from work.
  It is the exploration of different routes,
  and the appreciation of the subtle changes of color and texture,
  not only between each season, but between each day.

And there is always time for ice cream.

Through my son’s eyes,
  I am young again.

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¹ First Corinthians. Chapter xiii. Verse 11.