What do y'all do when you feel like the YF you have watched grow from an adolescent into a young man is finally a man but you still see him as a youth. I have quite a few I have watched grow from middle adolescents to now being over 20. One or two have told me to give them the credit of being the adults they are. Yes, I should, but I feel I guess like a parent who never really thinks of their child as still a young child. Heck, my Mom even told me recently she still looks at me and thinks of the boy I was.

In all honesty, some of these these young men I have watched grow have only graduated from school. They are still living at home; they work very hard and are not freeloaders. They simply are ready to move on with life, get married, and I am happy to still be considered their friend.

They see that I am not married though and maybe they question why. For now, I will simply enjoy them growing into a next stage of life. I am happy I can now hang out as equals, adults as we both are.

This brings up another point. I have uncles who are gay and fell in love when one was barely an adult and the other just retiring from a career in military service. While adult-minor relationship is so taboo, many older guys do the only thing legally open to them and have a relationship with an adult who is just legal. I will say, in the case of my uncles, they have been happy together for almost 50 years now. That is a rare thing to say, even for any couple anymore.

Many of us have lived life through the party years of our college life, and are enjoying professional careers. We are still of the age of considering marriage, yet, still enjoying being a light to the youth we influence in a mentoring relationship. There's time for everything. Life feels good. Just getting past the age we can't call ourselves kids anymore even though we feel like it is hard. And, looking upon the growing up of the people we have influenced, shall we accept the inevitable that they are grown up, be happy for their rites of passage and give them the equality as adults they have earned yet still knowing they have some growing to do in the next steps of life, as do we all.

Blessings,
Oliver