Stepping Out

“You are born once, when you are out of your mother’s womb and again when you step out into the world…”

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Dear Riddhie,

 

I guess by the time you are ready to read this letter there would have been many more chapters added to your ‘stepping out’ experiences. However, with this short post let me narrate the first incident when you decided that you were ready to take on this world all by yourself.

It was during the earlier part of our stay at Downingtown, PA when you started showing signs of unrest when confined within the house for long. Through the course of the day, if we stepped out, even briefly, you wanted to be taken along. The building where we lived had patches of green outside and every time you were let out, you wanted to break through the glass doors in the corridor (which were thankfully locked) and rush out to the open space.  

It was the afternoon of May 2, 2012 and I was working from home. You were playing with your toys in the living room and your mom kept a watch over you as she prepared lunch standing in the kitchen. I was engrossed in some office routine which called for taking some print outs. I tiptoed across the hall so as not to get your attention (lest you wanted to come along) and quietly stepped out of the house to the office complex in the building for taking the prints. I must have taken just 5 minutes in the entire course of my action and just as I was returning back to the apartment, I found you standing out barefoot and waiting in the corridor.

At first I just thought that you were probably out with your mom and my first reaction was to look for her and ask her why she allowed you to step out barefoot. But as I turned around the corner and took you with me, I was astonished to see your mom still standing around the kitchen. When I told her that I had found you standing outside in the corridor she was just as zapped as I was. Apparently, both of us were still unaware of the fact that you had learnt how to use the handle of the door and gained enough strength to open it on your own and that there was enough direction sense acquired to venture out on your own.  

For once we were both thankful that we lived in a closed apartment complex and that there was no way you could have gone out to the parking lot on your own. But, that day we got our first reality check that you were actually beginning to come out of your little shell and were turning into a little explorer of sorts. No longer we could just assume that you would be confined behind closed doors and walls of the house. A testimony to this statement was another incident that occurred when we moved back to Jersey but I guess that calls for another separate post. For now I guess the picture below says it all. (I took this at a place called Tyler Arboretum in PA when you ventured into this big wooden egg shell).

 

Love,

Dad.