Last night was my baby girl, um I mean my 14 year old daughter’s Jr. High Graduation ceremony. She and about 172 other students sat in folding chairs while the parents sat on the gym bleachers. Pomp & Circumstances played, officials and students spoke, awards were given out, it followed the traditional format.
And throughout the entire ceremony the thought that kept running through my head was, “Where did the time go?”
As the President of the School Board spoke and said that our children were moving from childhood into young adulthood I thought, wait…that can’t be right? She’s still a little girl!
And then I look at her, and I realize she is growing into a beautiful young woman. She is no longer that newborn we brought home from the hospital that I truly had NO idea what to do with. She’s no longer that tiny infant (okay not tiny she was 9 lbs at birth) that would cry for no reason, and often all night long causing me to cry right along with her.
She’s funny, and serious. She’s glamorous, and low maintenance. She’s mature, and immature. She’s intelligent, and ditzy. She’s graceful, and klutzy. She’s talented and yet still sometimes insecure. She is all female, and sometimes still a tomboy. She’s exactly like me, and nothing like me. She’s exactly like her Daddy, and nothing like him. She’s a study in contradiction, and as solid as a rock.
I somehow made it through graduation without shedding a tear but that was probably just because sitting in the bleachers truly, truly sucks and all I could think about was wrapping this up so we could go eat and get off the bleachers! Right now, writing this post from the comfort of my sofa, I am thinking about many other things and admit to shedding more than a few tears. I guess I’m as contradictory as she is. Maybe that’s where she gets it?
