Time Passages

Well I'm not the kind to live in the past
The years run too short and the days too fast
The things you lean on are the things that don't last
Well it's just now and then my line gets cast into these

Time passages
There's something back here that you left behind
Oh time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

excerpted from "Time Passages" by Al Stewart

My niece, the first baby in our family, will be 24 next week. I'm having a lot of difficulty adjusting to that. At 24 she is really and truly an adult, eligible to do anything except run for president or apply for Medicaid. But in my head she is still that kid who had to practice winking and who held my hand as we walked through a parking lot.

Her one brother will turn 16 in a few months, old enough to drive more than a Big Wheel, and just possibly mature enough, too. He's well and truly a teenager now, and will likely never again sit next to me on the couch under an afgan just to cuddle.

Yesterday, after much arguing with my niece via text messaging, I have had to accept the fact that my youngest nephew, the real baby in the family, is now 11. I knew, logically, using certain events as points of reference, he was at least 10 and possibly 12. Now I have to deal with the fact that he probably doesn't even remember honoring me with admission into his "secret" fort in the back of his bedroom closet.

When I was younger I couldn't understand why my parents had such trouble keeping track of my age, or dealing with the fact that I was getting older. I understand a lot better now. I like these kids a lot. I enjoy being in their company. I just want them to stop growing up so fast.

They'd better become some really outstanding adults, because I'm not going to get these days back again and I think I deserve some compensation. Maybe a trip to Disney World. They owe me.