Like a Kid

I feel like a kid because I’m with my sweet heart and we’re crunched into a tiny train seat with our huge back packs piled up under our feet and over our heads. We’re sweaty, farily dirty, very hot (real feel temp outside 100 degrees) and happy!

I feel like and adult because as I’m watching the towns go by out the train window, I’m think’n about our kids, who are basically adults themselves. We pass Norwalk and I’m think’n about how I took Joshua and Zachary to the Norwalk Aquarium with Grandma Polly years ago. There is a ‘touch tank’ there. Joshua was so little that he could barely reach the starfish and stingrays in the tank. Zachary showed him how to stand on the step and reach in so he could stroke the slippery stingray’s back. It was fascinating to watch them. Still is. Almost as tall as their dad now, I was captivated by the three of them walking side by side on the wooded trails of Rockefeller State Park over the weekend.

Their deep voices, their slightly varied yet similar gaits. How did it happen? Fascinating. Zachary just returned from Jordan and as he dribbled out stories of his foreign adventures, Joshua fired an endless stream of questions, which only encouraged Zachary to tell even more tales. Then Joshua, who is spending most of his summer break hours working in an ice cream shop tells us about what it was like to have his brother as a customer the previous day. We all knew it was inevitable as Zachary has always been an avid ice cream lover. The park is a sanctuary of sorts and this walk stands out among the meals and other ‘togethery’ events of the past few days.

Miraculously, they seem to have weathered the storm. Of course, the time passed too quickly and we were dropping Zachary off at Georgetown too soon. Thankfully, the excitement of taking Joshua on a college tour cut through the sadness swiftly. To see him walking through the science labs and greenhouses on University grounds was good all over. He most certainly belongs and I think he knows it.

We switch trains at New Haven and Shoreline Express takes us to Old Saybrook. The last leg of the trip is Uber. We round the corner of Niantic Bay Yacht club and she’s easy to see through the hot humid haze. There’s our girl. Bobbing gently in the ripling water, waiting for us.