I lift my head to watch the kids lining up on the track, scanning the runners to see if my boy is there. It’s been, what 6 or 7 years? 
And I still think I see those other boys here? The one that I did watch graduate and send off the college — and the other one I sent off to high school? Why does this track still look like “their track?” It’s been almost a decade, and I still scan the crowd, expecting to see different parents — “wait, isn’t that?” It is not. But her hair is the same. Everywhere, there are “replicas” of those other people; as if this life is really just a play, and someone has coordinated a new set of actors, that look the part, to just shuffle in and take over their roles. Because everything is exaclty the same.
Except, the boy I’m watching here isn’t getting his knees dirty in the baseball diamond, asking if he can have $.50 so he can “get a hot chocolate.” He’s running. Asking to know if he shaved seconds off his time, or not. “Yes, I believe you are 2 seconds faster than your time last week, of 5:42 for the mile.”
I am telling you, this life thing goes fast. It goes so fast, that I don’t think there is such a thing as 6 or 7 years passing. There is no way that many days have passed into oblivion. The needle hasn’t moved. Everything, really, is just the same as it was before.