“Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight”
“Stop, time. Stay just this way. But the future comes.”
It is happening, it really is. My round-headed baby is nearly an adult. She has reached her senior year of high school. This has gone as quickly as time travel. I was always confused when adults would say how quickly their children’s lives went…I am not anymore. This has flown by. I keep having feelings that just yesterday we were walking her past the graveyard to school. Teaching her about magic and being spooky and looking both ways before crossing the street.
This child has grown up online. From her first picture on the GloomCam to this year, every bit (that she’s agreed to, especially recently) has been a part of this journal, or previous journals, online life, a semi-public experience. For which I am very grateful. Yes, I’ve taken more pictures than is reasonable. At least up until the age of 14, when it became an issue. But it feels a bit like that Black Mirror episode, San Ysidro–we’ll always be Bean’s mom and dad, eternally. Somehow.
She was up on stage in her heels and tallness at the Thespian parent meeting being impressive and gorgeous and wonderful and I …just marveled that I had a small part in this amazing person.
And suddenly so much emo descended upon me. High school has flown by. No seriously. This has been a fuckin land speed record in kids growing up.
pardon my french.
I swear she was a skinny quiet 14-year-old wee girl who could actually do the Guns and Ships rap at full speed as an audition 4 days after starting high school in an entirely new state
…just yesterday
And now. This child, this woman, this amazing person. I’m transfixed, blown away, nonplussed, dumbfounded, stupified and astonished at this amazing young woman. My sweet round-headed baby is so fully becoming herself.
I had moments. I’m not the Mom who organized or takes center stage. I’ve always been part of the crew or chorus, though I secretly wanted center stage. I have felt jealousy at the Moms who have done and are doing that, but I turn that to admiration because it has never been me. I like the background, as Mom. This is her time, I’m just there to make sure she’s got the right outfit and gets snacks. And wears a sweater if it is too cool outside. And I’d like to help her compatriots get their snack on as well. (I think I feel her cringing at my phraseology).
But of course I’d like to be the Mom who gets to talk into the microphone or gets roses. But that isn’t my path this time around. I’m good with that. I am here to be where and how she wants and needs me to be.
All I can do is hope I’ve done that right.
