growing pains

“It’s all just part of life,” they say. When I was growing up, I was always one of the smaller guys in the group. For years I hated my stature, never confident in my abilities, but I never welcomed growing pains. That was until I found out what they were. When I figured out the aches in my knees meant I was getting taller I welcomed it with grins if not grimaces. I so desperately wanted to be taller, even if it meant being the awkward kid who fell down a lot and had a squeaky voice. Somehow, I knew that kid was the one who was moving on past our childhood.

I wonder though what triggers in our minds that tells us we no longer need these pains or that being the lanky one
fumbling around is so bad. You would think by now we’d get it. I’m getting it again in some of the strangest ways. Tonight we played a couple games in Jaron’s room. A little background to make this painting pop: Jaron is three years old. Around his room disjointed, halfway broken toys and trinkets lay taking up just as little space as he does. One of the games we played was Spielgeschichte, the game of telling stories found in pictures. Jaron, Camilla—she’s eleven and sometimes just as tempered as her younger brother—and I each took three characters and their respective tiles. We lined them up nice and straight, Jaron with help from his mom Karoline. Then, taking turns, we each told three small stories. Sadly enough, my stories were of all three the most fumbled.

When I was just halfway through my first story about a pig finding a duck and a hen along a path, I started feeling like I should never had started playing at all. Then I realized these are my growing pains. So I waited patiently and told my stories, as awkward as they were. Maybe soon I will be taller.