Well, here it is. 2017.
I always become pensive in the space between the end of a year and the beginning of a new one. I feel the build-up of days and years more acutely then. I suppose in a way it's a natural place for a pause, to take a moment to wonder: have I done enough? What have I made with this length of time called a year? What will I make of the next?
I look at my two girls and at the growing that has taken place, the many things learned and done. The kid: beautiful, wispy and suddenly so big, but still fragile, standing bravely at the precipice of formal schooling, the preschool chapter closed and left behind in the last year. My baby, with her halo of curls, bursting into toddlerhood with a fierce determination and yet still so soft and small when her outstretched arms reach for me.
I look at these two girls and think about that year that trails away behind me, how my path has determined theirs, what the marks and prints are that I've left behind on them. How I shape them.
And sometimes it overwhelms me because a childhood is a very precious thing to hold in your hand.
