The English Geek

It Goes Like This, the Fourth, The Fifth

I walked into Haley's choir concert late on Wednesday night. Just a few minutes, and late because I'd been to Nathan's choir concert at his junior high right before. The first choir (not Haley's) was singing Leonard Cohen's song "Hallelujah" and I found myself crying before I could even find a seat.

Back in the spring before she started junior high, Haley had to choose whether she'd learn an instrument or singing in the choir for her music option in seventh grade. She wanted to maybe play the flute or the violin, but my gut told me something different. Even though she didn't seem like a particularly strong singer, my gut new she needed to take choir. So I listened to my gut and I insisted she chose choir, even though she was mad at me.

She didn't love it at first. But her junior high (the same one Nathan and Jake go to now) has an amazing choir teacher. She encourages and bolsters and supports. She takes those young people and teaches them how to read music and how to use their voices. There's something powerful in that, I think—in learning to use your voice. It becomes more than just singing. If you know you have a voice then you also start to know you can say what you think.

What I didn't expect from that gut feeling was how Haley would blossom in choir. She discovered that she has a beautiful singing voice. Who knew? She didn't get that from me! The last time I sang in a choir I was in fifth grade and my friend Brittney asked me not to stand by her when we sang because the horribleness of my voice knocked her off her own tune. I mouthed the songs for the rest of the year. Don't get me wrong: I love to sing. If I am in the house or the car by myself, I often have music on and I'm singing along. But I keep the music loud to drown out how terrible my voice is.

But Haley? Her voice is strong. It's strong and confident and lovely. And choir, despite her initial reluctance, became her thing. She earned solos and went to choir festivals and never missed a concert. She tried out for and got into Bella Voce in ninth grade, and when she got to high school (ours is 10-12 grades here), she found another accomplished and amazing choir teacher.

There were some struggles, especially at the end of tenth grade when she didn't make it into the A Capella choir. (This is an enormous choir class; I think there are about 100 kids in it, and they sing the more technically difficult songs.) I didn't understand why and came this close to calling the teacher to protest. But I listened to my gut again, which said that the Con Brio choir she was in would be the right place for her that year. And it was. She learned to accept a loss without making others feel guilty for their accomplishments. In the smaller choir, she shined. She became a leader. And I know, listening to my gut again, that she learned in Con Brio what she needed to know to earn a spot in Chamber choir (you know, the exclusive one that does all the coolest stuff) for her senior year.

So much knowledge and experience over the past six years. No wonder I started crying at the concert, because it wasn't just her last concert. It was my last concert to listen to. No one believes me, but I swear: I can always hear Haley's voice in the choir. Not because she overpowers anyone else. It's subtle. But I can still hear her in the weaving of voices. I have loved coming to listen to her sing. It has been one of my favorite parts of her adolescence: her voice. And while this could be a story about moms listening to their guts, what it's really about for me is a person finding her way. Finding the thing that gives her expression, finding the thing that helps her be unique even within a crowd.

I will miss that beauty.

Textuality!

A little tiny graphic novel.

A little bit of drama over my printer eating the perfectly-misted cardstock I’d carefully dried under books for two days.

Lots of late nights spent happily playing with my favorite scrapbooking products.

35+ new layouts.

A bajillion ideas discovered in the flurry of creativity that a deadline brings on.

All of that, plus letter stickers!

One of my favorite Big Picture Classes Workshops, Textuality, is about to start up again.

Unlike my other BPC workshops, this one isn’t about writing. Well, there might be just a tiny bit of writerly advice thrown in. But mostly it’s about supplies. Text-based supplies to be more specific.

It’s like an ode to letter stickers.

A paean to fonts.

An homage to quotations, a tribute to titles, an accolade to cool journaling formats.

I loved putting the course materials together. And I’ll be secretly happy dancing every day I teach the class.

I hope you’ll join me in learning how to get all those alpha products out of your stash and onto your layouts!

"Even if Everyone Hates You, Your Mom Always Loves You."

Yesterday at the library, I answered the phone to an urgent voice. "I'm at the bookstore," he said, "and I need to know what to get my mom for Mother's Day." I had a small inward giggle at someone calling the library from the bookstore—they have booksmart people there, too. Also a silent groan and eye roll: it's only 4:30 on the day before Mother's Day, what's the hurry? Still, I asked him some questions about his mom's taste and then made some recommendations (Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake which I recommend to almost every woman older than about 35 or 40; Unbroken, and Frozen in Time as his mom likes nonfiction about history). The urgency was gone when he thanked me.

The very next phone call that came through was my husband. He wasn't at the bookstore (ha!), but his question was fairly similar: Give me some ideas for a Mother's Day gift. 

Another deep sigh.

Mother's Day, like Valentine's Day, is not my favorite thing. From the talks in church about perfect moms (I actually dreamed this morning that I had to speak this morning in church, and my dream talk started out by stating how I wouldn't be talking about perfect moms) to the idea of gifts. I don't know—it all makes me uncomfortable.

I told Kendell not to worry, I wasn't expecting anything and what I really want for Mother's Day is for everyone to be nice to each other. And maybe a picture of me with my kids and no one complains about taking it. I wasn't being passive aggressive; that's really how I feel. But then I found myself writing a Helpful Guide for Husbands Who Don't Know What to Buy: gift cards and little tokens and even grand gestures.

I ran out of time to write it last night.

This morning, Kaleb woke me up at 7:30. He had an envelope for me to open, and four pictures he'd drawn for me. In the envelope were three pennies he'd found, and the pictures were of skeletons and dragons and hard work---he'd written about why he loved me, in his most careful penmanship, and not just a few words. (The quote in my title comes from one of his cards.)

And that, my friends, is Mother's Day in my mind. The sweetness of my child being himself and telling me he loves me. The only thing I really need is that reminder: I love you, Mom.

Discouraged Dinnerland

Every once in awhile I get discouraged about dinner. This happens because I have picky kids who aren't afraid to voice their opinions, a husband who won't eat soup because "it's not manly" (thus eliminating an entire food genre), and my own quirks (I don't like fish or seafood...thus eliminating another genre). All the drama makes me blue; the result of said discouragement is that I quit trying for awhile. We exist on bagels and Eggos and cold cereal, bean burritos and scrambled eggs and maybe, if we're lucky, hash browns. Then I eventually realize that my fridge has only condiments, cheese, milk, and some wilted carrots. I take a deep breath and put my big girl pants back on and wade back into the fray.

The past ten days or so haven't been happy food times at our house. Someone who shall remain unnamed said something like "not that again" and, coupled with all the other complaints rambling around in my head, it was just enough to push me into Discouraged Dinnerland.

We ate a lot of tacquitos.

But then Monday came around, and I noticed a recipe on my friend Sophia's blog, and I decided to return to the Land of Cooking. Jake was at work (where he can also eat, as he works at a pizza restaurant), and Haley had already eaten with her boyfriend, but the four of us liked this. The opinions went like this:

Kaleb: ate it with only mild complaining and somehow didn't notice the green onions. (Any actual green food is usually entirely unacceptable.) (His plate was, of course, bereft of lettuce.)
Kendell: decided that he liked it well enough, but isn't sure he wants it once a week or anything. (His opinion tempered by the fact that there's no cheese involved.)
Nathan: One bowl with meat, one bowl without, another with. ("I ate so much my stomach hurts.")
Me: "Must. Stop. Eating. No, just another bite. Wait, one more bite. Holy cow this is delicious." (I ate so much my stomach hurt, in other words.)

So I'm adding this to the rotation!

Asian Beef "Wraps"
(modified from Sophia's recipe)
(also, modify amounts to fit your family. I tripled-ish the recipe; we had left overs.)

3 lbs extra-lean ground beef
1 red onion, diced fine
4 garlic cloves
a bunch of grated fresh ginger
salt and pepper

In a large skillet, cook ground beef with onion, garlic, ginger, and salt & pepper. Drain grease thoroughly. Add:

2 T sesame oil
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup almond butter (use peanut butter if you don't have allergies at your house)
3 T honey
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
2 tsp garlic chili sauce (this is in the Asian foods section) (also, it's HOT!!!)

Stir until everything is mixed. Add:

5 diced green onions (dice them small enough & no one will notice!)
1 can water chestnuts, drained and diced
1/2 cup diced cashews (or less if you're the only one who doesn't bitc complain about how nuts shouldn't be in any food except caramel, fudge, and ice cream)

diced romaine lettuce
steamed rice

The quotation marks in the title are there because this is supposed to be served as a wrap: keep the lettuce leaves whole and use them like a tortilla. But as I was eating by myself and wanted to read while I ate (without dripping stuff out of the bottom of a wrap onto a library book) (I am STILL dragging myself through Sweet Tooth and I'm only finishing it because it might sully my Serious Reader credential if I didn't), I tore the lettuce into pieces, put them on my plate, and then layered rice, meat, and a sprinkle of cashews on top.

Seriously: delicious.

The original recipe called for ground chicken. As ground poultry gives me the shudders and I had no defrosted chicken but some hamburger, I switched the meat. I think this would be equally as delicious (and much healthier) with diced chicken.

Kendell was doubtful when I bought the big package of romaine lettuce at Costco. (Since I had, alas, tossed out some deteriorating broccoli and asparagus that same day.) Just to prove him wrong, I made Asian chicken salad with the rest of the romaine for dinner tonight. (Well, by "made" I mean "opened up the Asian Salad Kit and stirred everything together.")

Which means that for two nights in a row, no gratuitous carbs have been consumed at my house.

Perhaps we have finally traveled out of Discouraged Dinnerland.

(Just as long as no one complains tomorrow!)

on Physical Abilities

Yesterday I spoke briefly with a neighbor, who asked me if I had any races I am training for. (Ragnar, right now, but I am seriously also thinking of doing the Epic Relay, which runs from Logan, Utah to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.) We talked about running for a bit and he said something like "I'm jealous of your ability to get out there and run" and I said something back about how he could do it, too.

I have this opinion that everyone could be a runner. That if you want to do it, you just have to start: buy a pair of shoes, figure out some routes, read a book or two about running. Start slow, with mostly walking. Pick a 5k to train for to give yourself motivation (nothing motivates like "I don't want to waste my race fee," especially now that they're getting more and more expensive!) and purpose. You'll have setbacks and frustrations and days you eat bagels and hashbrowns instead of going running, but that's OK because all runners have those, too. A large part of being a runner is believing that you are a runner. Once you have the mental ability, you run because it's part of your identity.

But what I forget to factor in is the physical ability.

I don't mean skill and talent. Trust me: I look silly when I'm running. I'm not super fast. I have to build my running wardrobe around the fact that my thighs rub together. I am not the typical ultra-skinny long distance runner and I don't run with grace or athletic ability.

Instead, what I mean is physical limitations. The neighbor I spoke with has a bad knee. Kendell can't run because of his two metal hips. Haley wants to run more than she does but keeps getting sidelined by shin splints. My friend Heidi has reoccuring skeletal problems from a car accident.

All of those physical things make it harder to be a runner. And none of them came because of choice but by happenstance.

And while I've had my physical abilities strained—ITB and plantar fasciitis and a constantly-irritated sacroiliac joint and burgeoning bunions—they've never broken. I've been able to recover with time and physical therapy and patience. But for the past decade or so, I've been physically able to run.

And despite my funny gait and my thunder thighs, I am grateful. I'm grateful for a body that keeps on going, mile after mile. I'm grateful I can touch my toes and practice cartwheels and handstands outside with my kids. I'm grateful my body takes me up and down mountains. I don't know what I'd do if I came across a physical limitation that would make it so I could never run again, because in my mind? In my mind I would still be a runner.

I think that sometimes you have to toss it out there: your gratitudes to the Universe. When I read Heidi's post this morning, I knew I needed to do just this. Acknowledge that part of being a runner is simply being lucky to not have physical limitations. I know one could appear at any time. But until one does, I am going to honor and respect my body just a little bit more. I'm going to be grateful that my mind says "I need to run" and my body says "how far?" and my thigh-covering shorts are clean.

I'm going to try to remember, every time I tie my shoes, that running is a privilege my body affords me, and not take it for granted. Not, in fact, care that I am slow and ungainly. Instead, I am (for reasons I don't understand) blessed to be able to run.

Giveaway: Everyday Storyteller 2

Can you believe it's the last day of April? Yesterday I went running and it seemed like everything possible was blooming all at once...it was the most deliciously fragrant five miles I've ever done! I'd like these perfect spring days to last a little bit longer; I wish there were about two more weeks of April weather left. Kaleb and I have celebrated spring by practicing handstands in the front yard. It's a story I want to scrapbook soon, because even when it's been cold and rainy outside, he's asked if we could go out and practice anyway.

He's getting pretty good at handstands!

What spring stories do you have to tell? Though it's not focused only on spring, but on storytelling in general, Everyday Storyteller 2 will help you get your stories down on layouts. And today you can win it before you can buy it!

Everyday Storyteller 2 is a brand new idea book offering more than 100 tips, tricks and techniques for scrapbooking. Go behind the scenes with 33 of your favorite memory keepers to see how they capture moments, tell stories and document their best memories. Sign up for the VIP list to be the first to know when the book is released and receive an exclusive discount.

For my part of the book, I wrote about a storytelling possibility that's easy to overlook. If you've read my blog or taken one of my classes, you know that stories and writing and sharing with words is the most important part of scrapbooking to me. And this little extra story spot I use makes me happy because it's a way to add just a tiny bit more narrative. There are 30+ other contributors who will share other amazing ways to get your stories onto your layouts.

If you want a chance to win the book, each book contributor participating in the blog hop is giving away an eBook copy of Everyday Storyteller 2. Use this entry link  to enter. You must enter by 11:59pm PDT on April 30, 2013 to be eligible. You may enter from each stop. Winners will be contacted directly as well as posted at everydaystoryteller.com on May 1, 2013

Here are all the other contributors; visit their blogs for more chances to enter!

Tangie Baxter Kerri Bradford Joscelyne Cutchens Catherine Davis Patty Debowski Lisa Dickinson Karla Dudley Leah Farquharson Karen Grunberg Jenni Hufford Donna Jannuzzi Amanda Jones Mandy Koeppen Riikka Kovasin Kami Leonard Amy Mallory Amy Martin Ann-Marie Morris Celine Navarro Lynnette Penacho Kelly Purkey Krista Sahlin Linda Sattgast Cindy Schneider Wendy Smedley Elisha Snow Neisha Sykes Jill Sprott Laura Vegas Allison Waken Crystal Wilkerson Jennifer Wilson

Happy scrapping!

Weekend

This weekend

• We had leftover chicken curry for dinner on Friday. My boys love my chicken curry. I like it but I feel like I'm missing a secret ingredient...it seems a little bit flat to me. I've started joking about getting a job at our favorite Indian restaurant just so I can learn what the secret ingredient is.
• On Friday night, all of my kids were gone. Haley was with her boyfriend, Jake was hanging out with his friends, Nathan was at a scout camp out, and Kaleb was having a sleep over at his cousin's house (in preparation for an exciting Saturday at the dinosaur exhibition). It was the strangest feeling!
• I finished cutting out all the squares for the quilt I'm working on, and got things pinned together. And I started piecing squares together. It will go quickly now. I'm trying to decide if I have the patience to quilt this or if I should have it quilted. (I will need patience because it will be a thick quilt.) Thoughts?
• We started getting caught up on The Game of Thrones. I've read the first book in this series and we watched the first two seasons, but I've forgotten who's who. I might need a GoT Cliff Notes summary.
• Sunday night's dinner left me all kinds of discouraged. I made brown rice and chicken, which is, true, one of my go-to meals. But when Someone complained about "can't we have something else?" and Someone else said "This rice is not soft enough" and No One said "Thanks for dinner Mom"...I don't know. I know I sound whiny. I'm just tired of Dinner Drama.
• I was late to church because I totally forgot I was in charge of primary sharing time. Cue guilt.
• I resumed reading Sweet Tooth, which I'd put away because it just wasn't grabbing me. On page 82 or so it says "This is where the story really starts" and I thought...OK, why didn't you just start here then, Ian McEwan? I am hoping it all comes together and I feel satisfied at the end.
• I stayed up late on Saturday night and finished Finding Francesca.
• I was up late because I wanted to finish my book and because I was waiting for Haley, who was at prom:
  
  

Doesn't she look pretty? She designed her outfit around the cameos she's wearing. They belonged to my mother-in-law. I LOVE that she wanted to do this! She had two white lace dresses she couldn't choose between and only decided on this one about two hours before the dance. (I'll just return the other one.)

How was your weekend?

Blue Jeans Quilt

It is like what we imagine knowledge to be: 
dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,
drawn from the cold hard mouth of the world,
derived from the rocky breasts
forever, flowing and drawn, and since
our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.
      ~Elizabeth Bishop

 

Right now my back hurts because I sat on the floor almost all day yesterday, cutting out 10x10, 5x5, and 8x5 (roughly!) squares from old jeans.

All of Haley's old jeans.

Today I will square them up to their exact proportions and start sewing a project I've been working on for 18 years now. I can't remember who gave me the idea, but I have saved almost every single pair of jeans she wore, since she was a baby, with the goal of working on this project: a blue jeans quilt as her graduation gift.

It's a strange thing to get a little bit teary eyed over a Rubbermaid box full of jeans, but I have. They tell a story, her pants. There's a dearth of tiny jeans, except for the size-6-month pair from Old Navy which were literally the first pair of little  jeans I ever bought. This is because she hated wearing jeans for a long, long time. We never could find any that really fit her body shape and besides: she liked spinny dresses. From the time she could make her opinion known until kindergarten, she wore dresses almost exclusively. I stopped buying pants and shorts and just indulged her love of spinny, pretty, girly dresses. (This is one of the best choices I made as her mom. It made her happy and it was my one chance to overdose in Girly.)

When she went to kindergarten, she saw that girls wore jeans, so she wanted some too. But she didn't like just any jeans. She still wanted pretty ones. So I watched for jeans with embellishment, embroidery, and bedazzlement.

She's had some cute, cute pants.

There's a clean line in time: pre-skinny jeans and post. In sixth grade she discovered skinnies and I didn't buy her a pair of wide-legged jeans again until last summer. There was the Aeropostale phase and the True Religion phase and the black jeans from Nordstrom she loved so much we bought another identical pair when she wore the first one out.

They're not just pants. They capture a little bit of who she is. And they're stories: of shopping trips, of school experiences, of fun (and sadness) with friends. When they are sewn together they will make a sort of retelling, a comfortable scrapbook. I can't tell all the stories, nor can she, but it's sort of a metaphor, the blue jeans quilt, a history made tangible. It represents how she's grown and changed, how she puts her personality into everything she does. It's a compilation of wants, identity, individuality, and history.

It is my way of saying, as she starts to fly, "these years happened too. Don't forget."

I didn't know how hard these last few months would be. The last days of my daughter's childhood. "Bittersweet" is almost the right word, except it isn't really bitter. It's sweet to see her becoming a woman with dreams, ambitions, and opinions, to see the person I only wondered at when I bought those tiny jeans at Old Navy so many years ago. It is a sort of salt, though, too, knowing things will change. Knowing that a phase of her life is passing. A door is closing. I still remember, I have the memories, I will have new memories, but those experiences, all of them with the pants: they won't come again.

But for now, working with the medium of her old clothes, I am remembering anew, and that is something I didn't expect, back in the spring of 1996 when I put her too-small jeans into a box to keep for now, that the blue jeans quilt would also be a gift to myself.

Everyday Storyteller

A few months ago I was asked to contribute an article and some layouts to the newest edition of Everyday Storyteller, which is an e-book that focuses on real life scrapbooking—on doing it because you want to get your stories and photos put down together somewhere permanent, with something pretty to go along with them. I was thrilled, of course, as that is exactly my own scrapbooking philosophy.

While I was in the thick of preparing for my Textuality class, Kendell was grumbling about an entry for the scrapbooking store in the checkbook. "You're doing all this stuff just for the class and it kind of seems like a waste of money," he said.

I didn't launch into my schpiel because his eyes would've glazed over. (Honestly, what husband would want to listen to a scrapbooking schpiel?) But I thought it.

I've been doing some sort of work in the scrapbooking world since 2002, when I started writing for the (sadly, now-defunct-because-of-the-stupid-economy) magazine Simple Scrapbooks. And one goal I have always set for myself is this one: do what I do.

This means that whether I'm writing an article, working on a class, or putting together a submission for an e-book, I make the same kind of layouts that I would make if I weren't doing them for an assignment. Sometimes—quite often, in fact, and honestly it's one of the things I love about having a scrapbooking assignment—the topic will stretch me. Assignments have pushed me to create layouts about experiences or stories I probably never would have arrived at on my own. But I make the topic fit within the reality of my life; I still tell a true story.

But the design approach, the use of products, the aesthetics: I do what I do. I use supplies I love even if they're not the trendiest or the newest. I arrange things so that the layout "feels" like one of mine—even though sometimes I feel like my "look" doesn't quite fit with what everyone else is doing. I refuse to replace story with product—I write a lot of journaling on almost every layout because that is what I do.

So to answer Kendell's complaint: I don't ever do any layout just for an assignment. I do them to teach and to illustrate something, but also because I'd be making them anyway. For an assignment or just for myself, I make layouts that are little pieces of my personality and aesthetics, no matter what.

This is true for the layouts I made for Everyday Storyteller. They are actually some of my favorites I've made in awhile. If you are of the scrapbook sort, the book is released on May 3, and there will be tons of give aways on the launch day.

Happy scrapping!

18 Years Ago

This happened:

 

I became Haley's mom. I was so wildly in love with her! With all of what I was experiencing, the utterly, entirely unbelievable gobsmacking amazingness of an entirely new person just arriving. A new person. How could I grasp what that means, when they handed me the slippery body and at last I got to see her face? Not just someone I met somewhere. But a new human being who never existed before, and whose care was entrusted to me. Me!

I flipped through her baby album last night, after her birthday dinner party, trying to remember exactly how that felt. The exhilarating terror of being a first-time parent. How filled up with certainty I was that I would do everything right. How much I loved every bit of her tiny little self. How filled with anticipation to see what kind of person she was, and also how hesitation grabbed me as well: already I knew she wouldn't be small for long.

I keep looking at my face in that photo—the happy exhaustion, yes, but right in the eyes. At the pure, sweet surety I felt then. I was so much younger and had so many things to learn. I was certain I would make none of my mother’s mistakes, but I would learn that I would still go on to make my own. I imagined that we would always agree, me and this beautiful, perfect creature, because how could we not? My heart was full of adoration. I had to learn that she is a strong individual and sometimes we would clash, and that would hurt but eventually we’d figure it out. I thought motherhood would be, if not exactly easy, something I could absolutely and completely do correctly, simply because I wanted to. The sheer strength of my wanting to be a good mother would be enough to make me a good mother. I had to learn that wanting is one thing, but succeeding is something entirely different, and that the very sharpness and strength of loving her would make the mistakes hurt even more.

But I didn’t know any of that yet, just like I didn’t know yet how to nurse or to change a diaper in the dark or to comfort the inconsolable. This was my first step in being a mother, and I thought I knew what my next ones would be. I had my future mapped out. I’d have two boys and another girl sometime within the next seven or eight years or so, close enough that they’d all grow up together, spread out enough that I could savor each of their babyhoods. I’d eventually be a stay-at-home mom, and parenting would sweeten and strengthen my marriage. Somewhere in all of that I would write novels, of course, but my main focus would be taking care of my kids. I had the vision of blissfulness that I was certain would be given to me because all of these were good things. (It didn’t quite turn out like that.)

Life has taught me quite a bit in the 18 years of Haley’s life.

I’m not quite sure why I feel so blue right now. She turned out to be entirely herself: funny, smart, sarcastic, creative. Who knew she would have such a beautiful voice, such a quick wit, such determined independence? We have had 18 years of laughing, talking, reading, and living together. She’s healed old wounds in me just by living a normal life. Despite my many mistakes, she is going to be fine. She is strong, which is what I always hoped for. I love her so much and am more proud of her than I can say.

But there’s still that tug: the mistakes. The arguments, the times I disappointed her or the things I regret saying. The alienation that adolescence inevitably brings. There’ve been times when I have felt absolutely wrong for her, as if she picked the wrong mother, as if she would be happier with someone far more fabulous than I. Looking back, it is easy to see what my mistakes were, and the ones I regret the most are the things I didn’t savor enough, the time I didn’t take, the kindness I didn’t share. In motherhood as in life, sometimes there is no way to know what you need to know at the beginning other than going through the process of learning it, by which time it is too late.

I thought that my goal to be a great mom would make me be a great mom. Would make it easy. I thought that because I loved her with that fierce, enduring emotion that it would never be really hard. And it wasn’t, of course—wasn't hard to continue loving her like that. But getting it right? That was never easy. Perhaps if there were only the two of you in the world. But there is also always life to live. Life that is messy and full of unexpected detours, life that rarely takes you where you think you’re going. Loving her, and wanting to be the kind of mom she needed, wasn’t always enough to make me able to actually be what she needed. And if I didn’t love her, I guess that wouldn’t matter so much to me.

But I can’t change the yesterdays. I can’t tell the Amy in that old photograph that she should savor more, and be more brave and less selfish, and share more of herself. I know now what I needed to know then, but I can’t toss the knowledge back through time because I could only learn it by living. So all I can do is look forward, and take what I know with me, and hope it will be enough that she and I can continue on, building a relationship. Because that hasn’t changed, from the person I was to the person I am now. I still love her, I still want to be a great mom, and while our relationship will continue to change as she strides out into the world, I still want to be close to her.