The younger Mr. Wilner says he is good at identifying patterns which is why he recognizes what I am about to do.
“Suppose I’ll have to mix things up so you there is nothing you can identify.”
He laughs and says I am good at that but promises I’ll forget and go back to what I used to do.
“Who holds your hand now?”
He scrunches up his face and says “what does that mean?”
“Who holds your hand now when you cross the street?”
“No one, I am 22.”
“I didn’t forget about that. I am always holding your hand and your sister’s, even when you aren’t aware I am doing it.”
He tells me that sounds kind of creepy and I tell him parents do it all the time and that it never ends.
“We may not talk about it all the time or tell you every time we think something should be done differently, but we think it. If you ever become a father you’ll get it.”
A Lesson I Won’t Teach You
“Do you know I used to be able to curl more than 130 pounds or that I could curl 60 pounds in each hand? Do you know that at 54 I can still come close to doing that.
Do you know how close I am to being able to get back to putting up 300 on the bench again?
Do you know that I wrestle with pushing myself to go after those numbers because I can feel certain changes? I can’t decide if I ought to fight through it or not take the risk of hurting myself?
Do you know how frustrating that is?
I was your age last week and mostly bullet proof. Things change. You don’t have to be me or even be like me, but you need to understand that time moves faster than you think.
You’re young enough to do so many things and have lots of runway, but it changes.”
He listens but he doesn’t really hear me and I can’t blame him because I didn’t hear it when it was said to me. It is a lesson I am not going to try to teach him because you can’t screw an old head on young shoulders.
And besides, some of it is a mix of me fighting vanity against sanity. I have written and thought about it enough to recognize this is part of my internal battle against aging.
****
Got some very positive feedback on the last two posts and am playing around with expanding upon them.
Maybe You Don’t Know Me
When You Read A Song For June
Haven’t decided yet because I have some ideas for some topics that I am playing around with digging into and those might occupy me for a while.
But then again I have some projects around the house that I am thinking about taking on and I might focus my attention upon those.
They are going to take some time to do them correctly and I am trying to decide if I want to commit to getting them done.
It is not the kind of thing to half ass or stop midway through.
At least one of them is something I could pay someone else to do and likely they will get it done far faster than I can.
And if I am not satisfied with the work I can hold them accountable where if I do it and it doesn’t work out, well that might present an issue.
That might mean I put in a significant chunk of time and still have to pay someone else for theirs.
My time is worth something. I don’t just give it away.
But there is something to be said for taking the time to figure out a solution and to execute it.
