Out of reach

Childhood is the place where we grow from.  Just like anyone who has gone to school feels like they are an expert on teaching school, I think we probably all feel like we are experts on childhood to some extent.

For some, raising kids is an opportunity to re-visit the fun aspects of a happy childhood, for others it is a way to make peace with a troubled one. Still others don't have the option or decide that they would prefer to not return.

As I see my eldest teetering on the edge between childhood and adolescence, I feel like there will be so many versions of the children I know and understand.  The baby she was is gone.  The toddler and pre-schooler also have disappeared, but she keeps being replaced by a richer concentration of herself. I cannot miss the her I know right now or last year too much because I know she will reappear as someone I will love even more.

I look back at my childhood and think, I disappeared only to re-appear year after year.  Who will  I become? How will I deepen and change, knowing all this is just out of reach until it is time to say hello to the her I will become.