- I'm the most important person in my son's life. This is a startling realization because I've always preferred to stay in the background of most social groups. I prefer to connect people rather than dominate the relationships -- less social pressure that way, and I can slink away and enjoy my solitude whenever. As a result, I've always felt myself to be a rather dispensable character in my friends' lives. The fact that I moved all the time growing up (and even now) deepens that sense of my transiency. But then I meet this little person, who loves to see me -- like when I enter the childcare room at my gym to pick him up after a workout. No matter how much fun he was having, wherever he is, he'd always run towards me while dancing a little and cackling excitedly. When he gets hurt, he runs straight to me. When I'm cooking dinner or washing the dishes, I would sometimes feel this little person propel himself suddenly at my leg (the only height he can reach) and hug me desperately tight. Sometimes my centrality in his eyes get a little stifling, like when I really really want a break from being the only one who could calm him down. I am (secretly) starting to thrill to his clingy love; it's just so wholehearted and pure. How could I resist?
(I do still worry about whether or not my son will one day actually become a fully functioning, healthily interdependent citizen of the world. It's just really hard to imagine right now.)
- As lonely and far removed from my friends as I feel sometimes, I am blessed with wonderful friends. On Judy's birthday this past Sunday, she prepared a wonderful hotpot that I got to share. Her grad school friend, visiting from California, heard of how we first met: when Judy joined me on my 2am run during freshman year of college. I myself have forgotten the details, except that I remember how kind this girl from Guam was to be concerned by how late I was going out. Judy recalled that we ran six laps and that we saw a shower of falling stars--her first witnessing of this celestial event (a big reason why I used to love running late at night). I'm so touched that she remembered so clearly. And today, on a whim while shopping at Trader Joe's, I asked Daniel to invite Christy to Paseo's with us -- and it's wonderful how often she's happy to hang out on short notices. We had a magnificent dinner of Cuban sandwiches and walked over to Molly Moon's for ice cream afterwards.
(Declan OD'ed on my maple walnut ice cream and went berserk. He started becoming a total social butterfly at the store, then got licked in the face by a big black dog, all the while frowning at the experience, and then proceeded to run with little legs furiously pumping away up and down the sidewalk.)
- I may have eaten too much ice cream tonight. A single scoop at Molly Moon's is definitely not the same size as a kid's scoop, the latter of which I usually get and will always get after tonight.
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