Grown Up

To Little Cuter, with love.

All of a sudden they are grown-ups.
You plan for it.  You set standards and expectations and examples.  You know it's coming.  You see the signs of maturity and you applaud them, encourage them, delight in them.  It's a gradual process most of the time.


Unless you get shot.


All of a sudden they are grown-ups.  They rush to your bedside and monitor your machinery. They hold your foot for an hour and don't complain - instead they laugh with you and try to distract you and they comfort you and, for a while, they are in charge and you are basking in the wonderfulness, the warmth, the excellence of being cared for by someone who gets you, who knows you, who loves you.


It comes on like that last sentence, all in a rush.  Like the spring run-off from the mountain tops that turns the dry-for-eleven-months Rillito into a 9' deep raging torrent, you are floating on an unstoppable current.  Along with the discarded sofas and engine parts riding atop the rapids, there you are, carried into the future with your once-and-never-again baby leading the way.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-nk1-MFk-bH8/TW7CA10wjqI

It's not an easy ride.  Not everyone has a clearly delineated door through which to pass.  More often than not I think it's a slide into a new role until one morning you wake up and find yourself in a house in the suburbs with a station wagon, two kids and a dachshund.  TBG may try to assuage the anguish with a Honda del Sol, but you're still there, facing the fact that somehow, without quite being aware of it, you've become an adult.


But sometimes life conspires to make that transition more abrupt.  You may pay your own bills and have a dog and a cell phone in your own name but your self-image is still stuck somewhere around 7.  And then, one day, you get a phone call in Target and you spring into action.  Airlines, pet boarders, parking lot attendants - get out of your way.  You are a woman on a mission, a person with a purpose, and you will use all the resources at your disposal to complete the task.


Watching someone as she passes over the threshold between her childhood and her future is an awesome thing.  She's right : she's sitting at the grown-up's table now.  She's brought her invitation to the party and we're welcoming her right in.  She's paid her dues, and left a trail of glistening stars behind her.  We are proud of her, but no more than she is of herself.


And isn't that a good definition of a competent adult: 

Someone who (with good reason) is proud of the person she's become.