January 21.
Emily's 18th birthday.
So, so, so hard for me to believe that my baby, my youngest, is actually 18 years old.
Makes me wonder where the time goes.
Which leads to philosophical meanderings regarding the meaning of time.
How, for example, when you're waiting for your car to be repaired, time seems like it is so slow it's almost stopped.
So how come, when you're children are growing up, time feels like it's on fast forward????
That one day they're like this:
And you literally turn around and she's like this:
With a side of a fantastic sense of humour:
You relish the moments when your children are together.
Having fun.
Rather than tattling on one another.
Trying to force them to the bottom of the family hierarchy.
When you look at your child and they take your breath away:
As the youngest child in our family, Emily has been pampered, spoiled.
She's cute.
She's adorable.
She's stubborn and challenging and difficult.
Once she decides she is not doing something, convincing her to do so is a sisyphean endeavour.
(In Greek mythology Sisyphus was a king punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity.)
Her unwavering sense of right and wrong have caused many an interesting discussion.
Injustice? That's been the theme of this term and Em has spent each morning dealing with a teacher infested with a Napoleon complex, who is so rigid that removing the stick would only mean another would grow in it's place.
And she has railed against this person.
How unfair he is.
A tendency towards the dramatic, I initially wondered if this intense dislike I have only witnessed in her one other time, in middle school, was something that, with time would improve.
And then I met her teacher.
Her impression of him, feelings toward him were completely justified.
Em has great difficulty with injustice, unfairness.
Balanced with an equally intense love.
If Emily loves you, she LOVES you.
Her commitment to Reilley, who is also 18, is wondrous.
I don't see couples who are as committed to one another as Em and Reilley.
From the moment they first met, when they were both 2 years old, they have been inseparable.
After 18 years of love, observation, experience, I can say with clear certainty that I adore Emily.
She is a wonderful, kind, caring person.
Stubborn, intense, brooding sometimes.
She is human, after all.
When she came into my life, everything was upside down, topsy turvy.
She centered me.
Focused me.
Kept me grounded at a time when I was feeling the least safe in my entire life.
She is still keeping me grounded.
A lot of responsibility for one child.
Now she is getting ready to embark on new adventures.
University this September (if she wants).
Driving in February.
I am the one having the most difficulty with that one, let me tell you.
Whatever I did to deserve to have such an incredible person in my life, I am glad I did.
Really glad.
So Happy Birthday Emily!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You are a beautiful young woman.
You will do great things.
I love you, deeply, surely, intensely and forever.
Title Lyric: Happy Birthday by Stevie Wonder
No comments:
Post a Comment