Time Passes

The simple flickering light from a birthday candle hit me like a ton of bricks. Another year has passed. In two months, another year will pass… and two months after that, another year. The years are piling up for my children. With birthdays two months apart, the fall is bittersweet. From September to January we plan parties, buy presents and blow out candles. We also look in the mirror and have a hard time seeing ourselves at their age anymore.

I picked up the kids from school the other day and I had a flash-back. I had an image of myself, a young girl, looking out the window of my elementary school at the high school across the street. I just knew there was no way I could ever be old enough to go to high school. From my window in 6th grade, being a teenager seemed like an endless way off. It wasn’t.

David and I realized that we’ve been together for 17 years. When you say it, it sounds like an eternity. When you live it, not so much. Our girls are growing up so fast… too fast. They are all independent… walking, talking, doing their own homework, making their own play dates (although at 11 and 13, you can’t really call them play dates anymore.) I watch them sometimes and wonder how on earth I got to this place. The place I’m in now… how did my own high school and college and younger days go by so fast?

So, as my girls age right before my eyes, I hope that they will be on the verge of turning 50 one day not regretting their choices. I hope they have done almost everything they had wanted to do when they were little girls dreaming of being big.

And as Amanda turns 11… and Lauryn turns 9… and Temera turns 14… I hope they remember that they are still my little girls. And they always will be.