The Child Within My Heart

Lately the passage of time has greeted me at every turn, standing in my doorway, making itself known.
It resurfaces memories through photos of my older brothers kindergarten graduation and our Sunday paper comic ritual, or the box of our childhood toys put away for grandkids. In the front of a car my little sister now drives, it whispers to me of a time when we sat together as passengers, her hand holding my finger over the edge of the car seat. It shocks me when it says that my youngest siblings are now the age that I was when they were born. It expires my license and my first debit card, a reminder that I’m getting older too. And painfully, it teaches me that things change. When the person that got me through my darkness and said they’d never leave disappears from my life without a goodbye, or when the girl I once shared secrets with over the summer camp bunk bed doesn’t send a wedding invitation.
It forces me to consider the question, “Can I handle the seasons of my life?”