little lessons

ho ho 5K this weekend, run with one of my two librarian friends. (the other one was out of town). as evidenced, we dressed up like reindeer. I took my inspiration from my sister dayna's costume from a year ago, down to the harness. we both ran the race in a little under 24 minutes, not remotely close to my PR from last year but that's unsurprising given how little I've been running. it was about as hard as I felt I could go. afterwards we ate snack cakes and hung out with a dude I like and didn't win any raffle prizes. on my way out I stopped and hopped on the swing set, because I couldn't remember the last time I'd been on the swings and that sucks, man. I can only swing for about two minutes before I start to feel seasick.

a little boy was playing nearby with his grandmother and he suddenly felt very social and asked to also go play on the swings, and we had a long discussion about spongebob and elmo and gingerbread houses. his grandmother laughed and said, "I've never seen him so sociable before." I matched my swing height to his because he clearly wanted to go as high as I was. so there we were, a 31-year-old and a three-year-old (four in february), swinging very slightly on the swings.

he said, "sometimes I get scared."
"what do you get scared of?" I asked him.
"of bad guys," he said.
"well, that makes sense," I said. "everybody gets scared sometimes."
"even your daddy gets scared, I think," his grandmother added.
"I try really hard to be brave," he said.
"you know," I replied, "I am a grownup and sometimes I still have to try really hard to be brave."