My daughter is 21 today.
We made it!
She’s an adult.
I really never thought I could have a kid that would survive to that age. You see after being married 16 years and having a pretty cool career in banking, I learned I was pregnant. Ack! How did that happen? I mean, things were going along and suddenly… they changed, and in a BIG way.
To tell the truth, I didn’t really care about having kids. We traveled a lot, had good jobs, and the money to do pretty much what we wanted, and then… SCHREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeching halt. Everything changed.
And then, I had this little bundle of living human and had zero idea about what to do with it. When I went to take her out of the hospital, the nurse said, “Go ahead, you can dress her and take her home.”
I’m like, “ME? You want ME to dress her?” I remember feeling totally useless and horribly stupid.
But I managed it, took her home, and for the past 21 years she has brought me nothing but pure joy. She is without doubt the best thing that ever happened to me, and had I missed the experience of being her mom, I’d have been much less. She made me responsible and steady and Mom, a person I never thought I wanted to be.
I was dead wrong; I’m so very glad that she’s here, that we have an great relationship, and that I get to watch her become the amazing person that she is turning out to be. I still wonder, though…
Where did those 21 years go? I blinked and it was gone. Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was hoping she’d learn to tie her shoes?