seasons of time

My nephew called tonight to tell me (at the ripe old age of 12) that he's wearing Old Spice and Axe body spray. He said it with pride and embarassment, almost like he's keenly aware of the place he's at - on the precipice of puberty and acknowledging it to me with all of the mixed emotions he's feeling. Wow, was I ever that goofy and young and open? I don't know, but I'm an adult now with all of the pride and hidden-ness that comes with it. And a contract with myself seems as stupid saying it out loud now as it probably seems to the readers of this self-absorbed diatribe. And I've only had one beer, so my mind is clear and too self-aware to not question what I'm doing here......

"I have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall. But I don't honestly know what kind.... It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everybody who comes in looking as if he might have played football in college. Then again, you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, 'It's a secret between he and I.' Or you may end up in some business office, throwing paper clips at the nearest stenographer. I just don't know." ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 24