Friday, March 9, 2012

Time Flies

Wow, this week has just flown by!  I know our sense of passing time changes as we get older, which is why high school takes FOREVER but our kids grow up in about two weeks.  But I swear, this week was only two days long, and now it's time for Olivia to go back to the University of Pittsburgh to finish her freshman year.  It's been a treat watching her get so mature so quickly this year, but I know that she found college-level courses like advance biology and calculus to be real eye-openers.  It has finally dawned on her, I think, that success now is going to be a major determining factor in her success later.

And I can only watch.

My job -- our job, really; please don't think I'm denying my wife any of the credit that is due her -- is done.

This is a hard one to accept.

I can't do anything whatsoever to shape her any more, because from here on out it's all up to her.  I can still help with the bills and offer a shoulder and a door that's always open, but that's it.  I often think of that Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner as a dad who would do anything to spare his son the travails of childhood, and somehow changes bodies with him, fully knowing that he has to go through the bullying, the teasing, the hassles of being small all over again.  I don't know any parent who doesn't feel the same way.

But I think we did a pretty good job raising Olivia.  It's going to be interesting watching the woman she becomes.

And not in a Chinese curse way.

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