Growing older is such an odd thing. I see the years pass and I see my age growing as steadily as the laugh lines around my eyes and padding around the areas I carry my babies in and on, and while I acknowledge that time is affecting me in those ways, it still startles me that other people are allowed to be affected by it, as well.
Case in point: my youngest brother, McKay, is graduating from high school this week.
It was fun to see him at Baccalaureate, and I was so proud to see yet another handsome brother of mine don that same blue robe and hat. One brother to go, and then that robe will be turned into another relic in my parents' costume closet.
We're so silly.
As part of the graduation tradition for my family, my mom and dad always give the graduating senior three things: luggage (so they can move out), a quilt, and a DVD slide show with pictures of them from the time they were little babies until their graduation happens.
Because I live in town, I'm often a part of the process of making two of these gifts (luggage doesn't take a lot of work, thank goodness, but the other two are pretty time/effort-intensive). It was bizarre to sit down and work on McKay's DVDs and realize how much of his life was spent with me being an adult. He was born when I was 14 years old, after all, only four short years before I moved on to college, and so seeing his pictures of him growing up were nostalgic for me, as I had very clear memories of him at the ages and stages my own children are now hitting.
I don't mind what time is doing to me, but it's absolutely unforgivable what it's doing to everyone else.
In a similar vein, the day before Baccalaureate, McKay received a call to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Because so many young men are receiving these life-changing calls while still in high school, it's become quite the social event to attend their call openings--McKay probably had a good 60 people there, not counting the ones who attending through FaceTime, Facebook, or, in my phone's case, Marco Polo:
He's going to Charlotte, North Carolina, in case you were wondering, and to my mom's relief and gratitude, he isn't leaving until October.
Thankfully, I still have one brother to enjoy as a senior, as Abe is set to graduate next year, but it doesn't mean I'm not feeling a little bit nostalgic that things are definitely going to change.
Congrats, McKay!
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