Irreplaceable

Ollie turned six last week.

If I’m honest, I don’t have many memories from the past six years outside of the blur of him transforming quickly from a wriggling little worm into the bright, moody weirdo he is today. Somewhere in there he learned to crawl and then to walk and then to talk, his brother Nolan was born, we moved from Los Angeles to Portland, he started preschool and learned to read and write and do math. He became obsessed with bowling, then calendars and clocks, then “trick shots”. I spent too much time trying to make it through the day. I spent too much time working. I was there with him, I witnessed it, but it happened so fast and I was always also somewhere else—worried about money and my business and my health and our future.