“Not since I was younger, maybe,” He conceded, with one corner of his mouth turned upwards. Wry. “Everything feels different when you’re younger. Like there’s some sort of invincible lightness in you that comes from not knowing just how bad it can get.”

I cut him a mild look from the adjacent swing. “What makes you think we know that now?”

“Well, look at Miss Nietzsche over here.” But it’s true, isn’t it? I don’t have to explain to him what it felt like to look at Sally across the gym of an 8th grade dance; it may as well have been an abyss. We worried about those things. Our worlds are fully formed each day, and they don’t get bigger— they morph into different planets. One day my primary concern is going to be how much fiber I should take—insurance plans, divorces, a son that hates me. Checking out Sally’s FaceTwitspace on the holographic generator 3000.

And really, how bad CAN it get? When’s the age where it no longer becomes acceptable to sit on a swing, and jump off of it because your knees are killing you?

But I did understand what he was saying— when I was young I felt uncreated. I was a point of light in a sea of light and I wanted to fly.