Observation...

I realized that my boys are growing older. Moreover, my sweet, wonderful boys are and always have been human beings and they grow older and onward. They have friends and influences that are not me. Logically I've always known this, but it seems that viscerally, I am just now coming to get my arms around it.

My boys, my wonderful, sweet, innocent boys...they are really not so innocent. It is the same game I played with my parents, either out of respect for them, or shame of my knowledge-- to pretend to be innocent or to simply not say certain things in front of my folks. Perhaps I assumed them too innocent to know such things, and felt that my understanding of the world would embarrass them. Or, moreover, myself. Perhaps these boys do the exact same thing with me. They have conversations all day long about things that are important to them; about people, their feelings, the things that make them laugh... they use profanity and know just enough about sex and violence and sorrow and human behavior to make candid judgements and witty observations. Through it all-- whether outright and veiled-- I see that these two boys, they are such individuals.

All the same... it is a strange thing to comprehend that my children have a life outside the life we have togeher, just like I have a life outside the life we have as a family. I suppose it just is my human self-centeredness, but occasionally I glimpse the world past the end of my nose, the one I obsess over constantly from a distance yet don't delve into quite as often, and it amazes me.