The Ordinary
I’m glad I was paying attention.
What is a group of fourteen-year-old boys? A gaggle? A posse? I am wondering this as I watch five of them leave my driveway on electric bikes cruising down the street, fishing poles in hand. Heading to an age-old pastime on a modern convenience.
I am trying to identify the flutter in my heart as they arrive and leave, their entire time in my garage mere minutes. They don’t stage here very often and I love to see my son in his element with his people, to listen to the comments they make, the casual, direct conversations they have about baseball, or friends, or what supplies they’ll need for fishing.
One boy knocks on the door and although I have known him since elementary school, I don’t recognize the man-child on the doorstep. His face more resembles his dad and older brother and less the cherubic towhead he once was. His voice is deeper too.
“How are you doing, Mason?” I ask.
“Great. How are you?” he responds in a deep voice that is almost comical, how far it is from the little boy voice I remember.
More kids arrive. They are cordial and even engaging, greeting the little brother and me standing in the garage, pretending to have something to do but just wanting to be in their orbit for a minute. They are bright-eyed, joking with one another. Comfortable in their own skin, enjoying the freedom of being fourteen on a Monday afternoon with the last days of the eighth grade just weeks away.
Summer is so close they can taste it. Fishing is a forecasting of what summer will hold when they aren’t at baseball camp or surfing or on trips with their families.
Watching the boys leave the driveway, calling to one another as they head down the street and towards the beach, I am struck by the silly analogy at play. Their leaving is a hallmark of their independence. The launching. I want my son to do this over and over again with good people. But watching the boys turn the corner at the end of the street, I feel a hitch in my throat.
I return to my chores and attend to my younger son. Head to the grocery store and start dinner. But I am profoundly thankful I paused to capture this little snapshot of my fourteen-year-old boy with his friends on a regular Monday afternoon.
I remind myself often that I don’t want my boy to stay a boy forever and there is grief at each parenting chapter as it closes, which makes a moment like this special.
I witnessed something sacred in the mundane today.
I am thankful I was paying attention enough to notice.