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She's not easy to celebrate. Not because she's not fabulous....because she IS....more than anyone really knows. It's because she asks for nothing. She needs very little to be happy. It's funny because sometimes I look at her and I just see me. The best version of myself. She's the evolved me. The calmer me. The smarter me. The peaceful me. Who knows if it's her make up or the fact that I was very different when I gave birth to her. My journey in the last nearly 15 years since she's been alive has been different then with my sons. Maybe it's because she's a girl....but I don't think so. I've heard horror stories from my friends about their daughters growing up, the defiance and attitude. But maybe because I didn't argue with her over little things...I learned the hard lessons from my sons. Either way she's amazing. She's funny and smart and beautiful and flexible and incredible. And as she prepares to start high school I just feel overwhelmed at how she handles everything.
I was going to give you a brief rundown of her last 14 years but as I started typing it it was too much. She's been through A LOT lets just put it mildly. And yet, she is happy every day. She's level headed and adaptable. She's kind and forgiving and beautiful inside and out. She shows so few people the side of her that her brothers and I get to see. To the rest of the world she seems quiet and reserved. I love that about her! She saves her best self for those she loves. Her teachers must see some of it because they adore her, I saw that first hand when they saw that she wasn't moving to North Carolina as we originally thought. Which brings me to my cream filling son, who did move to North Carolina. He was worried that he'd lose the closeness with his sister, because she's (like her mother) out of sight out of mind for the most part. She's difficult to have texting or phone conversations with. He made her promise not to shut him out and she's done her best to make sure their connection is still strong. She's working on reconnecting with her oldest brother and to navigate the differences in these men that love her more than I've ever seen brothers love their sister. They are her indicator of how a man should treat her. Thank God, because they treat her like the treasure she is. Many times as she was growing up I had to remind her brothers that she was learning about the male/female relationship from them. She couldn't learn from her father and me because thankfully that relationship ended before she was old enough to remember. I will never forget the day I got the strength to finally end my marriage----I looked over at my sweet little girl playing in her dollhouse and I thought....what am I teaching her? What is she going to think marriage looks like? Two people who barely speak, don't touch and never do anything together? No! I would not give her that example. She's seen first hand what a relationship can be from watching her brother and future sister in law. That was probably the best example she could have gotten over the last 4 years. That is what I want for her.
As she starts high school I wish her joy, I wish her a sense of belonging, I wish her the fairy tale romance she craves of meeting her future husband, I wish her a sense of purpose and fun and friends who love and support her but most of all I wish her the strength to continue to stay true to the amazing human being she is and for her to remain close to me and her brothers, always. I wish her a future that matches the light inside of her and smooth waters ahead. I said to her "You are everything I wish I was" and she replied...."You're everything I hope to be"....and that.....is just a day in MY life.....a really amazing day.....
