A Small Moment

“I don’t really want to be here anymore,” he said quietly with a perplexed look on his face. “I feel like I did back when I took those two months off.”

I was surprised to hear this from him, since just a month ago, he’d made clear to me that if I decided to leave the school, he was staying. He was prepared to pay for his own contract, and he clearly wasn’t clouded by any codependent need to go down with his mother in my fall from grace with Sifu. At the time, I couldn’t help but feel a bit hurt. I likewise couldn’t help but feel a bit pleased at his unexpected declaration of dissatisfaction.

“I’d rather be at the gym myself,” I whispered, conscious of the fact that the walled-off office we were standing next to has no ceiling‎. I’d aggravated my worn out right shoulder the previous day while changing a flat tire, and the bad mood I’d already noticed on Sifu made me fearful of further injury. Additionally, my changed feelings about the man and his school easily explained my preference for self-training at the gym. My son’s feelings were another story.

He didn’t know on Saturday morning why he didn’t want to be there, and the feeling may not last long enough to matter. But it turned out to be a small moment of needed camaraderie in a physically painful day of a ridiculously long month. And as long as I have to be there (to learn the rest of my new form), I’ll take all the good feelings I can get.