Little things

I replaced my badge clip at work at the end of last week. The elastic string that bounces it out at arm's length for badge readers and bounces it back beside my hip was badly frayed. I worried it would snap without my notice. The new badge clip is black and dull. It could be anybody's.

My old clip had a rainbow holographic heart sticker emblazoning its face. Behind that peeked the faded edges of a "You're Gr8!" smiley. Under that was a gold star. They could be peeled, gift on worn gift, tree rings or onion layers or memories, my girl now kindergarten-gone who used to share her preschool bounties as she said goodbye to me each dawning of my eight-hour shift in professionalism. I probably had the only rainbow holographic heart sticker badge clip in all the 3000-person agency.

August doesn't feel that long past objectively but if I think about it measured by L's absence it feel centuries. Her kindergarten year is half-over and she already plans for things whose concepts start when I'm in first grade.... The boy, my in-work-educated last, he's not much for stickers.

So it's another fingerprint of hers wiped away. Tomorrow I'll affix my plain black badge clip to my coin pocket. She has every right to grow up, up and away but my workday looks a little drabber.