Twenty

Twenty.

Wil is 20 today. No longer a teenager. In fact, I'm out of teenagers around here, which makes me feel old and accomplished, both at the same time.

Somehow, two decades have passed, and we enter a third. We are all a little/lot the worse for wear, yet, enriched, enhanced, perhaps even a tad more enlightened.

Wouldn't wish the last 20 years on my worst enemy.

Wouldn't trade them for the world.

It's the push and pull.

It's the paradoxes that make up life and love.

It's the living in the liminal space.

It's having to establish boundaries where we need them, and break them down where we don't.

It's having to grab hold of what keeps us sane and let go of what no longer serves us.

It's a paring down and a building up.

It's a force-fit into more mindfulness.

It's a clarifier that 20 years of having that feeling of your feet in the starting blocks, ready for that gun to go off, can bring.

On a continuum between barely surviving and completely thriving, we've moved in the right direction.

Today, as we celebrated at 5:07 AM with ice cream cake and boxes to open, what the boxes actually contained being of little to no importance, we heard a "Thank you" after each gift was discovered. When I said, "Look up, I want to take your picture," he looked up. He then helped clean up the mess, put his dirty plate in the sink, and washed his hands without an argument.

He quickly changed his clothes into the new Nike apparel, before hustling off at 6:45 for the daily Mass that starts at 8:00. Last night at a church BBQ, the priest received his instructions to have the mass-goers sing Happy Birthday this morning. When asked by one friend what he wanted for his birthday, he said, "Vacation Bible School is my present. I have everything else I want."

He is here to serve.

He is here to teach.

He is here to tire, wear down, exhaust and deplete to such a point, that what goes back in has to be different than what went out.

Happy birthday to my teacher, my sidekick, my companion, my friend.