A Moment in Time

Posted on October 2, 2011

When do you get to be a grown-up? she said.

When you can read & write & lie without laughing, I said

& her eyes got big

& she said she didn’t know it was that hard.  ~Story People

I was looking through photos this morning from six years ago and I noticed how much you have changed. How can six years be so transformative? How did you go from shorter-than-me, always full of questions (yes, you asked more questions than I ever did!) to this young woman who now questions my questions? How are we suddenly standing at the crossroads of preparing you to go off to college in two years when it seems like yesterday you read to me for the first time?

You have a car now. You are driving yourself to work and school and to your friends homes.

And as I watch you pull out of the driveway, driving a car that totally suits your personality,

I wonder about the dreams that lay resting in your heart.

The dreams only you know about,

for they are still so big and unreal

that you dare not wake them up yet.

Even you know it’s too soon.