The importance of a few seconds

It's amazing how fast things can change.

In a split second, I'm driving down the highway, chatting with my mom about something I can't even remember. The next second, this giant white car, a grandma car I call it, slips across the center line and comes barreling toward us. Both of us going highway speeds.

In that instant, I sort of freeze. I don't know what to do. My mom's not paying attention, trying to open up my air freshener that I just bought. She couldn't figure out how to get the package open. I can't say anything, I can't move. And then I snap out of it, I scream "Oh My GOD" and swerve off the road and halfway onto the shoulder. The giant white car swerves back into their lane, and continues on their way like nothing happened.

I thought I was going to die. I thought I was going to go careen into the ditch in my new car, with my mom in the front seat and bags and bags of groceries piled in the back.

I made it home in one piece. The whole entire way home, I kept thinking. What if I had been going 60 instead of 59, would I have been there seconds earlier, right in that car's crosshairs. I would have had no time to react and would have been in a serious accident.

If my mom had taken just another minute in the pharmacy, we'd have been in the clear.

It just terrifies me how important just a few seconds can be. A few, precious seconds saved my life. I'm thankful for those few precious seconds tonight. Thanking God for those extra seconds.

Good riddance... time of your life.

It's that time of year again. It happens every May, and it always makes me sad and nostalgic.

High school graduation.

Once again, I had to go take pictures before one of our school district's graduation ceremony, and it was okay. I don't really know those kids, so I didn't think much of it. I took about 10 pictures and left. Easy peasy.

But then I went to our other district's graduation ceremony, and that's where I got weepy.

I'll rewind the picture for you. It was 2011, and I had just started working for the paper. I didn't know much about anything, just a fresh college grad who was willing to do anything in my job. I was sent to this other town to take pictures of the high school kids doing their various activities a lot. I got to recognize those kids and talk to them, get to know them.

And then I got to cover their sports and watch them excel and succeed. I've been doing that for four years now.

This group of seniors that graduated are kids that were just freshman when I met them. Just little peones in the high school hierarchy, figuring out their classes and trying not to freak about the whole being in high school thing.

And now they graduated high school.

I took their pictures as they played on the football field. The volleyball court. The baseball diamond. The track. In concerts. At art shows. I watched them grow up and find themselves. I watched them succeed in their sports. I covered their high school careers.

And now they're gone.

It's like this era is gone, and now it's on to other kids. I'll miss my seniors, especially my football boys. I love taking football pictures and watching my scrawny little team play their hardest. Without knowing it, they were my boys. They were all my kids, and now they're off to college or the military. They're off to go find themselves and learn and grown and become actual adults. They're going to be on their own.

I'm going to miss them.

And it's so weird because I don't really know them. They don't really know me. But I'm sad. I got attached to seeing them in school and at sporting events, and now I won't. They'll be gone doing their own things.

I actually cried at the graduation ceremony. I am such a sap.