Caitlin’s dog is apparently looking very bad, old and corpse-like. Her grandmother is dead. On the phone, she mentioned that being home is now somehow different, that the day she always feared — the day she couldn’t be a kid any more — has finally come.

It’s a scary day, isn’t it? I don’t know when mine was, but I know that it’s happened. Maybe it’s a series of moments, and all those moments finally hit you at once as you see them not as disconnected events but an important tapestry. Your parents are no longer perfect idols but real people who make mistakes, people just like you. And so are your grandparents. And so is everyone else.

The only other time I’ve come close to this feeling was in Yellowstone. Hiking alone for a few days, miles from anyone else, standing in the middle of a huge valley surrounded by mountains, I realized that I was just another animal. I had fancy stuff on my back and body, maybe, some chemicals to make water safer and a small stock of food, but that’s it.

I’m not connecting these thoughts well, but they are somehow the same.