learning to walk again.

i've been comparing the days leading up to this experience to the days leading up to the first day of school. and in a way it was. but in another way it wasn't.
it goes back deeper than that.
today as i stood in line for the kilamanjaro safari ride at animal kingdom, i stood by a young family. and when i say young family i mean a man and his wife both in either their late 20's or early 30's and their son (who i eventually learned was 9 months old). they were friendly and talked with everyone around them. at one point the child was crying and they took him out of his stroller, and then said "he's at the point where he just wants to walk, not roll, not crawl, just walk."

and that's when i realized, yeah, this has all the makings of that first day of school, yeah, it has some other stuff but it's so much deeper than that.

i imagine it's like learning to walk for the first time (i say i imagine that because obviously, i don't remember the first). you learn to take smaller steps. you learn to stop along the way. you learn to be patient. you learn how to walk again.

i love it here. each day i realize that a little more.