Idiosycratic Life

So, yeah, I'm 24. I honestly don't hear the ticking of the biological clock yet. Every now and then, I think, yeah, okay, I could probably picture myself with an infant. Still, though- the desire to care for a walking, talking child (or a mouthy middle schooler, but that's another story) is as foreign to me as the desire to vote Republican.

But last weekend, I was at a fall festival. At one point, I was talking to someone when a toddler came running up to me and threw her arms around my leg in that incredibly trusting, relieved way that small humans have of showing possession of their parents.

I instinctively reached down to touch her curly little head as another woman, also wearing dark blue Old Navy turned-up cuff jeans, reached out and spatula-ed her confused child from my thigh. The lady I was talking to kept rattling on- but later in the day, I found myself thinking about it. I've never been hugged like that before.

Tick. Tock.