July 25, 2026
I had an incredibly busy week closing out the first summer semester of my graduate program. I guess I’ll power through and stay with it, but I had thoughts of leaving it all behind after it started getting intense. Luckily, I was able to keep my shit together long enough to push through phase one. I hope the rest will go more smoothly.
Beyond that, I got to spend a lot of time with my family this week, which was nice. My niece was in a musical last night, so we all went to go see it. Her part wasn’t huge, but she was one of the younger ones at her summer camp. She’ll try for a larger role later, according to her. Regardless, it must have been a blast for a middle schooler to hang out with all those other kids, especially the older ones that had the leads.
Seeing all the kids perform their hearts out had me pondering about their futures. I could guess who might continue on with drama into college and adulthood and who would probably let it fall to the wayside. There’s no telling if my predictions will come true, but there’s likely to be a bit of truth to all of them.
Without giving away too much, there was a boy who reminded me of myself when I was that age: bold, unafraid, and flamboyant. Nothing wrong with that, but I had to ask my mom if it was always obvious to her that I was different from other boys, to which she replied with a resounding yes.
Getting older teaches us that we’re all more alike than we are different. None of our stories are exactly the same, but we’re humans with similar tendencies and inclinations. We were all kids once, eager to ignore the sage advice of our elders in order to do whatever we saw best.
We can’t predict the futures of the kids in our lives, but we certainly get visions of their future as they grow, and it’s a beautiful thing to see.
