“Mom!” she says. I look up to see an OMG expression that matches her tone. “All the couples at my school are going to have the same anniversary. Seriously. Everyone changed their status yesterday.”
Prom.
I remember those quote, unquote anniversaries, celebrating months of togetherness. I remember straddling that cusp–staking claim on acts that were beyond my years, as if the act itself dictated readiness. I do, therefore I am.
You fake it long enough and then bam! Reality sneaks in and grips tight. No turning back.
In games of kindergarten tag there is base. Base is black! Swings are base! Base is grass! they call, identifying that which is within reach at the moment when “it” gains way. I’ve watched them play and here’s the thing: no one calls them on the sudden proclamation of base–on the shifting goalposts. They just go on, chasing and laughing. Laughing and chasing.
Sometimes my feet get to spinning beneath me and I fall. Without even thinking I pick back up again and start the chase. I stake claim as if it proves something. I fake base until my feet are steadied.
Eight weeks into studying Daniel and the deeper we get the more truths I find. People ask–in jest–why there isn’t a guidebook: How to Live, for Dummies. Oh, but there is. There is!
Those playground kids are on to something: base is always within reach. You just have to know where to look.