They grow up too quickly...

I had lunch on Labor Day with Ben at Bureau de Poste over in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Austin. He's already 28. It seems like only yesterday that I was teaching him how to swim, how to ride a bike, how to navigate calculus, how to choose a college, how to invest, and all the other stuff that dads should teach their kids. 

While he never much liked to have his portrait made he was a very patient child and didn't push back too hard. He has no interest in pursuing much of anything related to photography and that's okay. 

I write this because he's starting at a new job and seems now to be so grown up. So mature and so capable. We've never had to bail him out either legally or financially. He's never even had a parking ticket...  Once he left his final semester of college it was pretty much the last time he needed his parents for support. His new job marks a transition from his first job working with a PR agency on the Cray Computing account to his three year tenure at an A.I. startup and now into a much larger tech company. B. and I are surprised that he is moving so quickly into the upper reaches of management with each transition. 

I was sitting in my office today feeling a bit down. B. is out of town managing healthcare for a family member. I have been without adult supervision for the better part of nine days. I rarely feel "glum" but when I do I head to my galleries of photos and browse through the family folders. There I find great joy and satisfaction. I am also amused at the power my older photographs have to move me from a tangle of ennui back into full function. 

 Is there a point at which parents can finally become actual friends with their offspring or is that just hopeful thinking (wishing?)? We see him once a week for Sunday dinner. We share family news. We sit in rapt attention as he describes his past week at work, or a ski vacation, or a story about his time at Yonsei University in S. Korea. Our lunch this past week was in lieu of the family dinner. He always makes time to drop everything and visit. I am so blessed. 

Yes! He can swim. Well. And he does it often. In between running.

He is indeed well launched. I credit his mother.