where her dreams will take her

well so this past weekend we celebrated my girl’s 20th birthday.  twentieth.

t w e n t i e t h.

i’ve been saying it over and over to myself for the past three days, but i swear it still doesn’t seem possible.

now if kelsey was writing this blog post, she would tell you the twentieth birthday is a non-birthday. no major milestone –nothing big happens like when you turn eighteen or twenty-one.  but for me, for some reason…it feels really huge.

so to celebrate this big (to me), non (to her) birthday, i had this whole big ‘through the years’ kind of blog post planned out with pictures from every year.

i actually started it on saturday on instagram, but once i got to age eleven, i got a cease and desist ordertext from my girl.  something about ‘awkward teenage years’ or some nonsense like that.  that’s the problem when your kids get older – they have opinions.  and because they are technically adults, you sorta have to listen to them and respect that.

the thing is…being the parent of a young adult (see what i mean – i can’t even use the term ‘teenager’ anymore!) feels a bit like i’m coming into uncharted territory.   how to parent when your child, technically speaking, doesn’t need your approval.  and WANTS to start making their own decisions about their life.  it’s big.

as i type this, my girl is finishing up her sophomore year in college.  she has a couple more finals to go and then we’ll be packing up her stuff and bringing her back home.  she’s halfway finished with her college education.  {{seriously…this year has gone by so fast}} and without going into too much detail, it’s been a bit of a challenging year.  nothing bad.  it’s just, you know, these kids…my kid…they have to make so many decisions right after high school.  decisions about how the rest of their lives will look.  how they see themselves.  and i know i that there is a percentage of students who know from a very young age what they want to do with their lives. which is so great! but i would say a larger amount, although they might have a general direction in mind, find that the plan they entered into college with doesn’t quite fit the same a couple of years down the road.  and that’s where my girl found herself.  and as a parent, that’s where i found myself – trying to help her figure that out.

my girl (because the apple does not fall far from the tree) is quite fond of the inspirational quote.  and i remember one afternoon during spring break and we were driving back from running errands.  she was talking about her dreams and the future.  anyway, she shared a quote with me…something along the lines of ‘if your dreams don’t scare you a little, then they aren’t big enough.’

seriously…how much do i love this kid.

i think what happened that afternoon…is somewhere along hwy 169, my girl came to realize that the dreams she had for herself after highschool were good dreams.  honorable dreams.  safe dreams.  but in heart, she knew they weren’t big enough.  and so now after alot of talking, and soul-searching, and prayer…i think my girl has some dreams that are more her size.

i’m so proud of my girl. for a million reasons.  and looking forward to seeing where her dreams take her.

peace, kelly