Feeling Old

I got this graduation announcement in the mail today. It's one of my little cousins. I say little even though I know that he turned 18 last month. I felt SO old when I opened it. I remember once when I was about 14, Brandt, his older sister, Emily and his mom and dad visited us. It was the summer time and Brandt was probably 2. I remember because most of the family was over to our house and one of my other little cousins (Dustin) was there. Brandt's birthday was, I think, April 8 and Dustin's was April 18 of the same year. As I said, it was summer and we had one of those big above ground pools in our backyard. Matt and I took the "little" boys swimming. Neither one of them had swim trunks with them but my mom just shucked off their clothes and handed them to us with only a diaper on. They were too small to even touch the bottom of the pool. Brandt floated and splashed around while sitting on a blow-up raft - confident that I wouldn't let him drown but Dustin clung to my neck and refused to let go. He was enjoying himself but he wasn't about to let go of me. We had a really, really good time.

Look at them now - the big brutes! I thought about that summer day when they were so little and trusting and then I looked at the pictures of the young men they have become and I felt a little old.

I got over it, though. I just thought about all the fun I'll have telling their girlfriends/fiances/wives about the time I swam with them in their underpants.