Fourteen Is

Fourteen Is Proof that You Survived Your Entire Thirteenth Year.

Quite an accomplishment, if you can remember being thirteen.

Fourteen may or may not be an improvement, but the cool thing is you’ve established the fact that you’re a survivor. You’ve set an unforgettable precedent (who can forget their thirteenth year? Or their fourteenth?  Though I’ve forgotten a lot of the details, I can remember distinctly the intensity… mostly, insecurity.  It was palpable in the halls of my middle school. I remember thinking that middle school teachers must be insane, or desperate…).

My daughter just left Thirteen.  Rather breezily.  I am amazed at her resilience. Her cheerfulness in the face of some of the trickiest, most loaded moments of her life. She is beautiful to me. I’m so pleased I get to see fourteen unfold into fifteen, and fifteen into sixteen, and so on. And on.  It will be an amazing journey.

Sometimes I miss her little girl years, when she was my constant shadow, or her brother’s inseparable playmate. But right now is pretty delightful too.

Right now, she says she wants to be a photographer. Study in India (we ask her, why India? and she is vague, which is the prerogative of fourteen year olds…but I think her motive involves elephants and exotic light somehow. Delicious).

Right now, she wants to dance. But she doesn’t want anyone to tell her how. She invents her own moves. Watching her, I think it’s wonderful that gravity is mostly irrelevant to her.

Right now, she loves to sing. Lives to sing. Studies the lyrics on her iphone, listens to the tune for harmonies (she’s harmonizing!), learns a song perfectly. And sings it. I find myself singing along when I’m doing dishes or making dinner.

Right now, she loves animals. She wants to rescue them all. Kittens, particularly. And she has a mystic affinity for owls.

Right now, she dreams of formal dresses. She has watched her sisters dress up for formals; she’s more interested in the formals right now than the boys that she might go to a formal with one day. I’m totally ok with that.

Right now, we aren’t sure she’s grown into her feet yet. She may be the tallest girl of our little clan.

Happy Birthday, Darling.