on growing up

on saturday morning, i met lisa and mccaye and their babies for brunch in burlingame.

our childhood homes are within a few streets of each other. we went to church together every sunday for over fifteen years. we went to girls’ camp together five summers in a row. i have old family videos featuring plays i made up with lisa and her sister christine when we were preschoolers; when i reach back into my earliest memories i remember many days playing at their house. i don’t remember when mccaye’s family moved into the house at the top of my street – because i was so young; she was always at the top of the hill. i was one grade ahead of lisa and mccaye in school, but we were always neighborhood buddies.

these girls and i – we grew up together. truly. 

now lisa lives in palo alto with her husband and babygirl, and mccaye lives in san francisco with her husband and babyboy (we were roommates in the city for a little bit!). i hadn’t met either of their little ones, so we met up about halfway between their homes and had a great time catching up.

and as i drove across the clear blue bay to oakland after our brunch, the nostalgic, astounding feeling of growing up washed over me. it felt like yesterday that we were babies, and now these dear friends have babies of their own. i never cease to be amazed by the swift and steady way time keeps moving, how chapters of life bleed into one another and we evolve. that whole phenomenon sometimes feels so aching, but it is also so very beautiful.

i went to oakland to go inside the temple, but it was unexpectedly (for me at least!) closed. i walked through the courtyard and up to the terrace. i sat on a warm bench under a tree overlooking the wide, clear bay (i wish pictures did the view from the temple justice). it was so quiet and there was a soft breeze and the sky was just so blue and awake. i thought about growing up and becoming, and about how wrenching mortality has seemed lately – how painfully beautiful my most recent bit of growing up has been.

 

and i resigned to the acknowledgement that chapter will continue to lead to chapter and my soul will keep collecting more wrinkles. i decided that as time keeps moving, i will deliberately keep growing up – yes, continually growing and continually growing upwards.