Today is Daughter #1's 19th birthday. The beginning of the end of her teens.
And we all know what comes after that, right?
Adulthood. Whatever that means.
Young adulthood's kind of like March, an illusion.
March wants us to believe that winter might actually come to an end. That spring is truly on its way. There may even be daffodils and crocuses to prove it, depending on where you live.
But here in the northeast, March is only an illusion. Spring never arrives for real before April or even May. No matter how much we want it to.
In fact, every year since Daughter #1 was born, it has snowed after her birthday. First in New Jersey, now here on Martha's Vineyard. Every year.
Who knows, maybe it snowed after March 5th every year even before she was born, and I didn't realize it because I wasn't keeping track. But I've kept track now for 19 years.
Since I stood at the end of the hospital hallway at the window, and watched the flakes drift down. I remember lifting Daughter #1 out of her bassinet beside me and holding her up to see the snow.
It was a moment of perfection, a still shot in my mind.
Standing there, cradling that tiny little girl, born six weeks early. I was so grateful she was healthy, there in my arms, a witness to this snowfall that by all rights she should not have yet been born to see.
And so, every year after March 5th, I take note of the snow.
Spring may not actually arrive for a while, though it might tease us with a day here or there.
Sort of the way adulthood arrives. After years of faking it, with little teases of reality now and again.
Happy birthday Daughter #1.
Enjoy 19. Every last second of it.



