your son's happiness. don't you dare run past.

Life goes by. It goes by fast. And some days you are up at three, working, and sixteen hours later, you aren't even close to done; you are even more behind, and you are talking too fast, your mind on overdrive.

And you don't know who you might have offended by talking too fast, too much, too overwhelmedly. You don't know. You're sorry.

Then your son calls while you are running to Whole Foods to buy tilapia, broccoli, sweet potato fries (you're taking short cuts). And he explains this new job he has—how, precisely, this business of media planning works. How he has his own clients now, three weeks into the job, how he writes a proposal, sends it to a client, gets an email, all capital letters, from his boss:

G R E A T   J O B,  J.

And you know in that instant, while you are running, while the sun is setting, while your mind is on overdrive, that this is it. This is what you cannot run past:

Your son's happiness.