THE WAY WE GROW

     I have a seventeen-year-old daughter and a seventeen-year-old son. When they were born they were six weeks early which is not unusual for twins. They were four and five pounds, and it used to make me nervous to bathe them because they seems so tiny and breakable almost. I remember them at every age- five, six, ten, thirteen- and now they are young adults. They are intelligent, strong, and capable. They travel up and down the East Coast negotiating traffic and cities and people. They sit at the dinner table and share their philosophical insights, their triumphs, their sorrows, and their dreams. Somehow, they went from being tiny infants in my arms to full-grown, and I never actually saw them change. It just happened.
     And everything in life is like that. There is always something happening, some movement and shift; upward or downward, outward or inward. It is too subtle to witness while it is happening, and yet, it is happening all the same. At certain points, we take note of what's different, but by then it is already integrated. We wonder how it happened, and when.
     And if it's happening in our children and our friends and acquaintances, we can be sure it's happening in us too, the same way. We can't see it, but evolution is always at work. We're constantly changing, constantly growing. The only thing we need to decide is in which direction we will move.

I accept change as a slow process where nothing seems to be happening. I keep on moving steadily in the direction I want to go, and before I know it, I find myself already there.