Friday
March 21, 2003
It Was Twenty Years Ago Today [Reprise]
Another year gone by ... another Tot birthday ... another twenty-year-old daughter.
Sigh.
Time doesn't just fly, folks. Time climbs into the cockpit of a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, when you're not paying attention, and flies at three times the goddamn speed of sound. I'm always aware of that fact, of course -- or at least I try to always be aware of that fact: sometimes I forget -- but I'm never more aware of it than when another Tot Birthday rolls around.
Especially when it's one of the *big* birthdays, like this one is.
All I know is this: one minute you're trying to squeeze a wiggly resistant toddler into a Winnie-The-Pooh swimsuit ... the next minute, you're watching her build a Science Fair solar system out of tissue paper and duct tape ... the next minute, you're wishing her a happy twentieth birthday from seven hundred miles away.
And that's what I'm doing today: I'm wishing my daughter a happy twentieth birthday. Wherever you are and whatever you're doing, Kacie ... I'm wishing you a happy twentieth birthday. And a healthy twentieth birthday, and a safe and peaceful twentieth birthday, and a memorable twentieth birthday [but memorable in a good way, please: no midnight emergency phone calls], and -- most importantly -- a twentieth birthday filled with people telling you how wonderful and special and incredibly precious you are.
Beginning with your mom.