Get older, get happier

I feel the glaze of warmth soak through to the deep part of my brain, the part that uses all your senses and inner focus to remember something for a while. Hopefully, the rest of of your life. Or it could be the florescent bulbs shining 4 feet above my head, accompanied by decorative fairy lights spattered in every corner of my vision. My dad’s 52nd birthday at my brother’s new house.

My brother himself should most definitely swell up over this house more than me, but the purchasing of the new house occurred very shortly after his engagement announcement. Hence the extra sense of pre-marital warmth that hugged the air.

Then my parent’s gazed at each other, as if they had just spent the past 500 years with our family at their very own house, a hefty but manageable 40 minutes away. They have that ability to talk with their eyes; in a language I can read but not speak myself. My dad’s eyes grew twice as large, unknowingly peeling away a protective layer of himself as he spoke softly about his babies as if they were sitting in highchairs and its 2008.

The warm glaze then cracked over me, as my mom agreed with a flush face. Enough silence followed that I’d like to think all 5 people in that room were stripped of their words at the realization that life moves forward at an uneasy pace, truly. The realization that it’s not that crazy to make that warm coating into a fog, and squint at the entire life you’ve lived with these people.

If you can find the time.

The yellow tint of the memory is literal, I realized when I picture it now; it never really goes away.