Such a classic movie, not for you maybe as it is 80’s cheese (one my favs by the way) but classic all the same. A coming of age movie about one singular day. You have spent the entire last year coming of age. So many new things tried, so many new things come and gone. So many I almost can’t keep with up them and where they lead you.

December, just a few days into being 15, and you had already started the New You Journey. First there was the mini lathe given to me by the Catter that you promptly took over and created some fabulous works. There were mini mushrooms, two tool handle, couple of Christmas trees in various sizes and shapes, and one wooden top who held a spin for a respectable time length. Then there was the gifted entry level fly rod from the Purist Kayaker and taking a sudden interest in the Not the Purist Kayaker fly rod and fly making skills. You took to these with the same intensity you use when sailing all those years ago. By the end of the month, the lather had come and gone but the fly rod was here to stay.

January, when visiting the Pontificator for New Years, you decided family treks were for little kids and that you were perfectly capable of finding your way through the forest. With a destination set for family lunch, off you went. You can stand on this fallen trunk stating you are no longer you but you will always be my twig. If this New You Journey continues, I guess this means our annual holiday camping trip with be lonely without you. You will hike your own hike and we will meet up in between. Only time will tell.

February you decided the New You Journey was about more growth. School was not giving enough time to practice welding and you wanted to grow your skills more. To accomplish this, you created a 6×6 metal cube from left over 12 gauge plate. Once the cube was made, you patted beads until the twig arm was tired. To aide in twig growth, you started eating, drinking, and sleeping more. Breakfast (sometimes two), lunch, snacks (homemade and filled with nuts, seeds, and grains), dinner, and sometimes second dinner. Keeping up with various healthy snacks to fill the New You Journey is an every third day chore for me. Oatbars, granola, protein drinks always at the ready.

March’s New You Journey was madness. Home life developed a new routine around this madness. Dinner was immediately upon school bus delivery. Hangry has always been a thing but spring brought a new level out. If not mad, you were angry. If not angry, you were despondent. All the while the Planner, the poor Doubter for the five days he visited, friends and family, tip toed around trying to keep the calm. Getting you to help with the Dwelling was an act of congress from which I still don’t know was worth the effort. Oh, but when happy, gosh it was uncontainable. The giggles and the smiles were contagious. Sadly, we knew this New You Journey would stay for many months to come. It’s not your fault, it’s biological. Stay strong, be calm. Take bubble breaths. Oh, and get a hair cut. Hair in your face has been a thing since the moment it reached your face at the young age of three. It was drama then, it is drama now.

April brought another new skill as part of the New You Journey. Fancy clothes. Having to attend a public event where the dress code was Sunday best it was time for you move out of little kid clothes into dandy duds. Fitting clothes for anybody is always tricky as best. Fitting clothes is a learned skill taking years of practice. Practice to determine what fits best, what looks best, what works best. The more you wear them, the more you determine the style. Luckily for you, this event was easily managed with a pair of slacks and a long sleeve shirt. No tie needed. Unluckily for you clothes are not designed for tall and skinny, no matter the age. What you needed was toddle sized waist with teenage size length. The longest pair of toddler pants stopped higher than the socks you were wearing and the correct length pants were almost four inches too big in the waist. Worse yet, you cannot wear a skirt which is how I fix this same problem. Once pants were found that could be passable you didn’t know how to sit, or walk, or stand. Practice make perfect and sooner or later you will find the new you in fancy clothes.

May’s New You Journey was manageable. You spent the better half of April working out the madness and fell into May with managing your mischievousness. Every day you worked on managing the anger. Some days were bad, but most days were good. On those good days you walked the line between silly little kid of days gone by and trying on being silly without the kid. A more managed version of silly, if you will. I miss the silly kid you but I understand. May’s phone camera roll holds lots of selfies, something you consider childish, not genetic. I miss the stolen phone images. Please note, you get all of your fun genetically from the Planners side. Not mine. Two peas in a pod you two are.

June was spent half at the Pontificators and half at home. Arriving via flight where upon you were not walked to the departure gate nor walked out to the arrival gate by an adult, gave a great take of independence. We are most certainly not hoover parents and have always pushed you to be a self reliant child yet your self independence as gotten shorter as you have gotten older. At five years old you would sleep in a tent at the back of the property without a second thought. Now you sleep in a tent directly as close to our tent as physically possible. No amount of pushing has resulted in you taking back the independence until this month. The entire two weeks gone you spent roaming the Pontificator’s retirement community (nice and protected against big city #1 crazy) via foot, skateboard, electric skateboard, a granny cruiser bike, and two different e-bikes. In fact, you enjoyed this new found independence so much that on confined days you too to sending me selfies with looks resigned to the worse fates ever. Upon your return it was clear the New You Journey was too include leaving home on your bike for 15-20 miles at a time, to go fishing with the neighbor kid at various ponds and ditches around town, to be as independent as possible. Aided in your new independent streak was the willingness to help when at home. Happily to help, at that! Let us hope the independence continues with great rewards. But remember, with freedom comes great responsibility.

July to me was the most dramatic and unexpected of months. After not having participated since the Spring of 2019, no matter how much friends (ours and yours) tried to entice, you asked to go sailing. Boom, explosion, fireworks. SAILING! Apparently the New You Journey was to include previous love. Yes, love. You absolutely loved sailing. You ate, slept, drank, talked of sailing. It consumed you until one day it didn’t. You wouldn’t say why and we didn’t ask. Oh, sure over the years, we have figured out what happened as to why it stopped but no words have been or will be spoken about those findings. Occasionally we would ask but you always declined. So when you asked to sail everything was dropped (well the very next day as you asked on July 4th and the beach was a zoo) and off you and the Planner went. And lord, how you can sail. Duck to water and all that. When you asked two weeks later I was hopeful. When you asked again at the end of month I knew with certainty the New You Journey would forever include sailing.

August brought another new to the New You Journey. Everyone who knows you can see how much you love the water. You fish, you kayak, and now you sail again. You volunteer with younger kids to teach about marine life, you explore the workings of aquatic life, and you are always removing trash to make a cleaner life for the waters you love. What better way to add to your love of all things water than to SUP. Donated by the Purist Kayaker, you are now the sole owner of a slightly need of repair stand up paddle board. Fixing took more work than expected and what turned out to be an independent project resulted in all three of us helping. But hey, that’s what family does. We worked together and you SUP all by yourself with driver assistance of course. Not sure this new adventure will last the test of time but for now it is helping you to grow into something more than a twig, something more than you.

September high school. There are no other words to describe. Some would say it can all be summed up into football and prom. But those are just minor experiences that encompass so much that high school offers. There is the mashing of several middle schools together, dozens of buildings to navigate, and the non stop hounding of college/life prep. There are horror-mones, drivers ed, summer jobs. Then there is the classic big fish little pond experience. Apparently the New You Journey is to take your second year in high school for everything it has to offer. Football, let’s go. After school social clubs, let’s go. The ability to hang with friends and ride around on their golf carts because some of them are old enough for drivers licenses, let’s go. I really don’t care for sport related activities as it does nothing but cause unnecessary riffs but it is an experience none the same. Nor do I care that you are riding around town with kids I don’t know fully on a golf cart but know that this need for independence is normal. Hopefully, educational activities that promote brain growth stay, football leaves with the season, and your friends are responsible.

October solidified a New You Journey experience. School may not teach you welding but you don’t really care for welding all the much anyways. New friends in school keep trying to impart their wisdom. For these kids its about jobability. They know they are never going to college they take tech classes seriously. As serious as any 15/16/17/18 can be given their brain capacity. When not messing around in class some of these kids are trying to learn to weld as it opens the door for jobs once high school is done. To impress these friends, you are trying to be a better welder. What better way than to fix the leaky holes in the tractor box. Welding will not be who you become, it was be this thing you did in high school. Just remember experiences confirm what you do or do not like. Experiences are not wasted. To experience is to live.

November opened your eyes. Having been given freedom to fish at various bays, waterways, and local ponds you are forever honing your skills and trying to impart this new found love on various friends with various degrees of success. Anybody can fish with a rod and a fresh cut bait. To fish with a fly rod is a whole other level of dedication. Fishing for you is not about the catching but about the enticing. Sure you want to catch, this means you succeeded. Catching aside, what you really want is to prove the self created flies and fishing methods are alluring to the eyes of a fish. Fishing will forever stay on the New You Journey. It will not be this thing you did in high school. It has become part of who you are. Sailor. Fly Fisherman.

Happy Birthday Fly Boy. Since I can longer give out candles, much less 16 of them, I will find other ways to keep the silly little kid alive as long as possible.