The advantage of hindsight

Before I go to bed tonight, Daughter Two’s birthday will have begun. She’s at school on the Least Coast, so she’ll be nineteen there three hours before she’ll be nineteen here. Of course, to be precise, she’d have to wait until 10:43 am Pacific time to celebrate, but we’re counting the whole day as the proud moment.

I’ve been going through an old laptop (the one we purchased for the Ball Of Twine Tour in 2001), making sure I don’t leave anything on it I care about before we donate the thing. When we took that trip, Daughter Two was not yet nine and even then, she was her own person.

Looking at the pics from that decade-ago summer, I can see the curiosity, the brilliance and even the sly cursedness that have become key aspects of her adult self.  As her father, I would have given anything in 2001 if it would have guaranteed she’d turn out the way she has. Now that I’m on this end of the tunnel, it’s easy to see that she was always going to be this wonderful woman. Mary and I need not have worried – we were largely just along for the ride.

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart! Keep being who you are.

Dad