I start thinking about how I met this girl in high school. I said something. She said something. Ten years later, I’m pushing the kid on the swing and thinking—what happened to my life?

I tell him, thank you, but I’m thinking he was working on a mid-life crisis before he even graduated. Welcome to my world, I say, and I read this: And there is no tomorrow there’s only right here and now.

SELF PORTRAIT BY JAMES A BIRD 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 38

I taught English at that wilderness asylum they call our high school for over 30 years. In…