Lately, I’ve been noticing time even deeper, in a way I never have before. Noticing it in the quiet moments, in the corners of my home, in the way my boys move through their days. My dad turned 88 this week, and something about that number made everything feel more fragile, more precious, more fleeting. It’s as if time has been tapping me on the shoulder all along, asking me to pay even more attention.
And then today… my oldest boy turned 13.
Thirteen. A label that feels heavier than the number itself.
Labels do that...they turn ordinary moments into milestones. They add meaning to things that, just a breath earlier, felt simple and untouched. “Teenager” is just a word, yet somehow it carries the weight of expectation, responsibility, and the quiet ache of childhood slipping into a distant memory.
I see that weight on Dylan too. In a 'not wanting to get older yet' way. Not in a fearful way, but in an aware way. He’s always been that kind of child, the one who doesn’t just grow, but notices himself growing and everything in his environment showing up differently. With a sudden different meaning. He feels the shifts in his own heart. He feels mine too. He always has.
Homeschooling has been one of the greatest gifts of our life together. Living side by side, learning in the rhythm of our days, watching him branch off into his own choices, his own friendships, his own sense of self. People often misunderstand homeschooling, calling homeschooled children 'anti-social' but Dylan is proof of what it really creates. He isn’t just social, he’s discerning. He chooses friends with intention. He connects deeply. He sees people. He is fearless in his abilities.
Thirteen years and I pray I am doing it right.
This morning, in the quiet, early hours I looked around and realized it was thirteen years ago, at the end of this very month, that we moved into this house. Thirteen years ago, none of what surrounds me today existed. Not the toys. Not the vast amount of art supplies. Not the little marks on the walls from boys who play hard. Not our pets. Not the life we’ve built here.
I’ve been noticing the objects in our home differently lately. How the toys that were once loved daily now sit a little longer between moments of play. Not because they’re forgotten, but because my boys are growing...discovering more of themselves, stretching into new interests, new versions of who they’re becoming. And yet, they still hold onto their favorite things with a tenderness that tells me they know those toys came from a childhood built with intention, imagination, and love.
I’ve kept my boys away from the daily pull of screens. Dylan, at now thirteen, does not have a phone and I have no intension of getting him one yet. They enjoy their game time here and there, both my boys love Minecraft, but their childhood has been rooted in the real world, in nature. In mud and forts and scraped knees. In creativity and curiosity. In presence. In the details that are so often overlooked. I forever try to foster beauty into their world. Not that I don't teach them of the dangers, not that they don't hear the bad, but beauty comes first.
It is much easier to grow up believing the world is good and bad things happen, then believing the world is bad and good things happen. There is clearly more good than bad, yet sadly, we are fed mostly the bad. More labels were fed.
The mind will focus on what you feed it.
Maybe that’s why these labels feel so sad to me and hit me so deeply. Because a word like “teenager” can make a child feel like they’re supposed to grow up faster than they’re ready for. It makes me question myself for a moment on how long I should try to foster 'childhood'. But Dylan… he is strong. He is grounded. He is who he is, and he doesn’t bend himself to fit anyone’s expectations. He never has. Never, ever, ever.
Thirteen years of him. Thirteen years of this home. Thirteen years of watching time move through our lives in ways that are both beautiful and unbearably tender. Time passing, unbearably painful at times. It has never helped that I am the kind of girl who not only feels it all but feels deeply.
I’m know time doesn’t ask for permission. Ever. It just keeps moving. But it leaves gifts everywhere. In the daily mess, in the noise, in the quiet, in the things our children outgrow and the things they hold onto.
And today, as I watch my boy step into this new chapter, I’m grateful for every moment that brought us here. Grateful for the childhood he’s lived. Grateful for the young man he’s becoming. Grateful that I get to witness all of it.
I will continue to foster both my boy's innocence and childhood as long as I possibly can. Life, the Universe, is not the one asking them to 'grow up' because of some number or label. It is only from the noise of outside expectations. Yet in truth, it is on the inside that counts and I have learned that the Universe is always here for us, and never against us. It will place you where you need to be in the right place at the right time.
I trust in that, I trust in our journey, and I trust my now thirteen-year-old boy knows how to listen to his heart.
