On day I awoke as an infant. After hours of struggle I emerged backwards into a foreign world. I was coddled by mother and father, so I stayed this way a while. Some time later I awoke as a child. A boy with half-dollar eyes and an adventurers soul.

Those days you created empires out of sand and the backyard was a kingdom unlike any in a book. I heard about something called adolescence, this bizarre time before being a grown-up where you could have a girlfriend without your parents getting too mad, so I squeezed my eyes shut and forced myself to wake up as a teenager.

Something wasn’t quite right. School was difficult, and I felt guilty having a crush, because my mom and dad still saw me as a boy. Someone else in my life saw me as an adult, forcing adult choices on me, but that’s a whole different story. Before I knew it, I awoke one morning out of a deep sleep, in a new town, my arms wrapped around her.

I had awoken as a husband, a nurturer, a caretaker. I used my few days of life up to that point as a reference for how things were done. Today I woke up a man, single, greeting the crisp mountain morning with sore muscles and tired eyes, wondering if I’ll wake up different tomorrow. Perhaps I won’t wake up at all, so I have decided to absorb every second of today with half-dollar eyes, an adventurers soul, the crushes of a teenager, the lessons of a former husband, and the helpless innocence of an infant,
sometimes allowing myself to be humbly coddled by mother and father.