Can Blogging Help Us See The Future?

This post will be shared in a number of places but relatively few people will read it because we are all too busy trying to get others to read what we just wrote.

On a different day, in a different place and in a different mood I’d say it is a question of engagement, or a lack thereof that distinguishes what will or won’t be shared.

It is not the only reason things may or may not be presented to others, but it is a factor.

Still this is not that day or that time and I am not here to discuss it because I am behind the eight ball and running to try and catch up so that I can finish other work.

If You Are Late Why Are You Writing?

Because you don’t become a better writer if you don’t work at it and push yourself to do it under any condition.

I push myself to write under any condition so that when I call upon the words they know to answer, that is why this post is being shared with you today.

Can Blogging Help Us See The Future?

Maybe, sometimes by looking into the past we can get a glimpse of what the future might look like. Sometimes we can see something we missed and use that as a tool to help us in the future we are heading into

Sometimes we can see something we missed and use that as a tool to help us in the future we are heading into.

Looking backward isn’t always done for nostalgic purposes, sometimes there are other reasons.

Join me as I go back ten years to a time when my kids were still quite little and I was a blogger who had no idea about how dramatically social media would impact my life.

My Son’s First Day of School

The grand adventure begins tomorrow, or perhaps I should say that it continues. My eldest is heading off to kindergarten. After much stress and debate we decided to send him to day school. I don’t know who is more excited, him or me.

We spent a big chunk of the day at my folk’s house where we enjoyed a fabulous Labor Day barbecue and talked about what it is going to be like to be in kindergarten. I told him a little bit about my experience and related how it was way back in kindergarten that I met G.

In a corner of the living room my father, grandfather and I shared stories about what school was like for us. The kindergarten classes of 1919, 1948 and 1974 recounted tales that in some ways will not be so different from the class of 2006.

In some ways it was rather surreal how some things never change. I began school a relatively short time before the end of the Vietnam War. My father was a few short years after WWII and my grandfather started during WWI. Not a very impressive comment about people, is it.

Anyhoo……….

We spent a little time getting his school supplies together. There were new kippot to buy, a new backpack, some pants, shirts, a couple of books and some assorted odds and ends. And throughout all of this there was this little smile on his face and a look in his eyes that made it clear that he is aware that this is a big event.

I suspect that tomorrow is going to be hard for me. He is so very big now. I used to carry this little boy tucked into the nook of my arm. I could hold him and pretend to be the Heisman Trophy. But not anymore.

From time to time he still falls asleep in the car and I still get the chance to carry him in to bed. Only now when I hold him I feel his feet dangling against the middle of my legs and at 45 pounds he has metamorphed from a light package to something more challenging. Now on the odd occasions that I have more than a five minute walk from the car to the bed I begin to notice the extra weight.

The baby talk disappeared ages ago. He still makes the occasional mistake. The other day he said that he wanted to be the betterest but the big guy doesn’t ever call me da da anymore. He doesn’t always want to crawl into my lap to play with his toys. Oh, he’ll still do it from time to time but I see the impact of the older brothers and sisters of his friends and I see him weighing things.

He is more cautious about doing things that mark him as being a baby.

Tonight as he lay down to go to sleep he asked me if Grandpa S. knew that he was going to start school. I said that I thought so and he told me that he missed him and I said that I did too. And then he told me that he loved me and asked if I thought that my daddy missed his daddy.

He is really starting to understand it all. He gets that grandpa is not coming back. He told me that he wished that Grandpa was still here because when he learns how to read he wants to read him a story.

I was happy that it was dark because that caught me off guard. My grandfather would have so very much loved to have heard that.

Well, I have rambled and muttered enough. Hold onto your loved ones and hug them tight because time has a way of moving all too quickly.

In a few short hours my little man will walk into class and I’ll head off to work. If I pass you in the parking lot you’ll forgive me if I don’t look up or say goodbye because I think that even though it is a happy day it is going to be a hard moment.

We’re a couple of weeks away from the end of school and the boy who was starting kindergarten in the story above is talking about driving.

Got a few months before I have to worry about that and all that comes with it.

The kid will start 10th grade in the Fall and I’ll look at him again and wonder if we can slow time down for just a moment longer.

I’ll silently ask to be given a moment to catch my breath but it won’t come and we’ll all run towards something.

We’ll hope it is the future we want and that it is filled with the things we need. Time will tell.

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4 Comments

  1. Kristen Hewitt May 30, 2016 at 3:50 am

    “I’ll silently ask to be given a moment to catch my breath but it won’t come and we’ll all run towards something.We’ll hope it is the future we want and that it is filled with the things we need.”

    This look back made me tear up. It is going SO fast and I feel like I’m on the ride, embroiled in life, and not really savoring and capturing the moments. Regardless of who reads your blog, you must be so proud and happy to have these words to re-read.

    on a second note, when I tweet your pieces, it doesn’t tag you on Twitter. You can choose to add that in your plug in if you’d like so you know who’s sharing your posts.

    • Jack Steiner May 30, 2016 at 1:05 pm

      It does go really quickly and since we all lead such busy live it is easy to miss things, but it is also easy to feel like we are missing things when we really didn’t. Sometimes when we stop to catch our breath we realize we were part of far more than it feels like and we see things with more clarity.

  2. Larry May 25, 2016 at 5:22 pm

    Nothing can stop time! Cool to think of the road traveled.
    You talk about his changes – think of yours in that time.

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