Sometimes A Card Is Not Enough.

     Emily moved away to college last week. I still haven't given her the card I bought her for her high school graduation. It's not like I haven't thought about what I was going to write in it, actually it's the opposite problem. What do you say to your child that is at the very point that you have been preparing them for their entire life. Anything that hasn't been said, is no longer between a parent and a child, but between two equal adults. It's not like I've changed that much since I was the one to welcome her into the world. She is no longer that helpless baby looking in awe at the world though; she is not that little girl that looked up to me for guidance; she isn't even the teen in angst who tested her boundaries. She is an amazing young woman that will continually make me proud as she moves forward through her life. A life that I will be a much smaller part of.

     When she gradated high school, I was going to write I was proud of her on the card. I really wasn't proud that she graduated high school, I wholly expected her to graduate high school. I'm proud of who she has become.

Now we txt back and forth, my wisdom already imparted, my fatherly advice no longer wanted, but still given. It's not like Emily will no longer be a part of my life, but now the admiration of a little girl that she once looked up to me with, I look at her with. I am content in knowing that things have changed, she is no longer a little girl in her father's world, I am now a father in his adult daughters world.