Growing Up

The dream that we are our fathers:

I walked to the Brod (river), without knowing why, and looked into my reflection in the water. I couldn't look away. What was the image that pulled me in after it? What was it that I loved? And then I recognized it. So simple. In the water I saw my father’s face, and that face saw the face of its father, and so on, and so on, reflecting backward to the beginning of time...

Sometime between the point when we are very young and helpless, when our parents do everything for us, and the point where we start to mature and become more independent, we come to realize that our parents are real people. They aren't just the caregivers whose lives revolve around our very existence and live to grant our every wish. They are real people who were young once too. They are just like us... people who grew up, got married, started a family, and are doing their best to get by in the world. How we act affects them and how their day is going. Every conversation, every smile, every argument. Of course they have changed throughout life and marriage and getting to know their children... but do you ever wonder what your parents were like before all of that?

How often do we really think about our parents lives before we came along? Or even our grandparents for that matter? What kind of household did they grow up in? Did their family have money or were they poor? Were their parents unforgivingly strict? Did they live in a time of abusive households? Did they act silly as kids? What kind of music did they listen to? What kind of things did they like to do? Did they play sports, play an instrument, work because they didn't have a choice? Who did your mom date before she met your dad? What kind of girls did your dad like before he met your mom? What were they like? Did they ever fall in love before meeting their spouse. How did they react to their first breakup? Why do your parents act the way they do sometimes? What in their past made them the way they are?

It's really an interesting thing to think about. And as we grow up even more its odd to think that someday we will be parents and in the same position that our parents are in now. Will we be like our parents? Will we follow their example or will we choose to act differently because of their behavior?

We, or at least I feel like we are, growing up so fast. Half the school year is already over and at the end of this year we'll be going to college. Even our siblings are growing up. My brother was in his first relationship and its scary to think that in a few years he will be in high school. He'll be an older teenager who is taller and more mature and I wonder about the person he will become while I'm away at college. I still wonder about the person I'll become while I'm away at college.