22.03.07 - 4:00 p.m.

i saw to it that you were raised right, at least for the latter half of your raising. your mother may have set up shop recently, but when you were young she was too busy or uninterested to bother. so i drove you to school. i made sure you ate. i stole your pants to patch and return. there were several understandings reached at different points in our relationship, either by assumption, fight or pleasant bedtime conversation. you couldn't tell me just anything because you were afraid of my judgement and i couldn't hear everything because i was afraid for your safety. we ran like a loving, well-maintained machine while operating with these understandings and your adulthood loomed like a promise of finality. i looked forward to the day that your feet stopped growing, you paid your own bills and we could sit in a bar booth as peers which we technically had been all along. i wanted to get you through adolescence, but i forgot or never knew about the mandatory separation, the idle kind of contempt that must break parents' hearts.