It's been a long, strange trip since the dog days of the summer of '03. The world is a very different place now, especially as we're in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. But even before everything ground to a halt last month, things were vastly different. For one, I'm 52 now. That's crazy in and of itself. And if you told me or anybody else in the world (including him) in July 2003 that Donald Trump would be our president right now, you would have been laughed out of the room. And yet here we are.
But now my daughter is an adult. Still a high school senior and dependent on us, but able to vote and skydive and legally change her name, etc., etc. So much has happened over the last 18 years, of course. There were weepy days going to kindergarten (her, not me; no, really), swim lessons, a brief stint of T-ball, many years of soccer and lacrosse, field trips, science fairs, great report cards, a broken wrist, sprained ankles, college visits, the occasional tantrum, some sarcasm and mostly, a lot of fun.
It doesn't feel like it's going fast when you're in the middle of it and then suddenly you're sitting there across from a legal adult (with another one two years away). I have a lot of friends with little kids and babies right now and it seems so far in the past for me. I haven't changed a diaper since 2007. Of course, I also have friends whose kids have kids, so that's also strange.
Soon Hannah will be a high school graduate and then a college student, possibly in another country if all goes well and McGill University is able to have in-person classes. We still have a lot of reminders of those younger days when her voice was squeaky and she had bangs and carried a stuffed Elmo everywhere she went. I'm proud of the young woman she's become, but sometimes it's fun to look back at the cutie pie she was not too long ago.
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