the day my parents became people
I don’t remember when my parents stopped being just my parents.
It happened quietly.
One day I realized my mother had been a girl once.
She had favorite songs. Embarrassing phases. People she thought she’d know forever.
My father had plans that had nothing to do with me.
There were versions of them who had never heard my name.
That thought makes me strangely sad.
Not because I wish I hadn’t been part of their lives,
but because for so long I only knew them from the chapter where I appeared.
As a child, you assume your parents arrived fully formed.
Then you grow older and begin reaching the ages you remember them being.
And suddenly,
they seem so young.
I wonder how many times they were frightened and I mistook it for certainty.
How often they were figuring it out while I assumed they already knew.
There is something bittersweet about finally seeing your parents as people.
You understand them better,
but you lose the comforting illusion that they have always known where they were going.
Maybe growing up is realizing they were never standing that far ahead of you.
They simply started walking first.