Twenty in 2020

Dearest Daughter, you are twenty years old now.  The teenage years have been left behind and a new decade awaits.  As does so much more.  On the precipice and ready for the living.  All the unbecoming and becoming.  The questioning and embracing.  Learning and unlearning.  Failures and successes.  This is your one, wild and precious life.  

Go and live it well.  

Before you do, take pause and reflect on all that the year of nineteen gave to you.  Twelve full months.  Some of those were spent in California, where difficult conversations and miraculous breakthroughs occurred.  A season of doing without and listening more.  Learning more.  Hard and beautiful, and you know what I say to that: brutiful.  Such is life and humanity.  

We celebrated with a graduation and a road trip down Highway 1.  There were travel snafus.  An expired passport.  In the interim you resided at Mema and G'pas.  Then, with much glee ( mine, of course), you arrived in Vienna.  You spent a few months with us.  We did some traveling.  Hiking.  Cafe hopping.  Croissant consuming.  You and Brother traveled to Portugal and had an adventure.  Sisters arrived and we all journeyed to Spain.  A friend visited from London.  There was so much in-between.  All the everyday life and conversations.  Market trips and canal walks.  Then a return stateside.  A new job procured with Whole Foods.  More adulting and decision making.  We returned stateside and now here we are.  One month away from you moving into your own apartment.  

I say this with every birthday letter, but so much change.  As seems typical when a full 365 days has passed and we've taken another spin around the sun.  I would be remiss not to mention that your birthday came amidst a global pandemic.  A time where we are dealing with shelter at home restrictions, abnormal life routines, political nonsense and a lack of collectivity here in the States that seems inhumane.  COVID 19 has left its mark on so many with loss and illness, lack and hardship.  Despite the current circumstances and surreal times we are living in, we were gifted a joyful celebration of your birth.  

For that I am ever grateful.  

You, Thing 3, navigate life with purpose and deliberateness.  Intentionality and authenticity.  Your voice lends itself to speak truth into situations that appear murky and unknown.  I hope you acknowledge that and allow that same truth to seep into your personal discernment.  You possess a quiet strength that I have long admired.  It is not showy or haughty.  But gentle and loving.  While I know you prefer routine and the known, as opposed to the in-between, you have navigated this recent season of just that with grace and patience.  You love big.  Please don't ever stop.  There is this gift you have of seeing right into people, through all the layers and complicated stuff.   Continue to do that.  People want to be seen.  Your work ethic speaks volumes.  The adage, "a job worth doing, is a job worth doing right", comes to mind.  Something along those lines.  Either way.  You give your all and expect the very best not only from yourself but those around you as well.

I hope this year of twenty brings happiness and joy; A search for both in the mundane and exciting.  As you began your educational venture I hope that the information you seek is found, your intellect expanded and the opportunities endless.  I hope that there is failure, so that opportunities may come from it.  I wish for you deep and abiding friendship.  Loyalty and honesty from all those you love.  I hope new adventures find you and are sought.  When you need courage, I hope you remember the that you have it within.  For the times when vulnerability is asked of you, I hope you take that step.  Whether it is a whisper offered, a hand extended, tears cried, or an embrace reached for.  

My dear daughter, you are a gift.  And as I say every year, I am grateful to be your Mother.  Here's to your next spin around the sun.  A resounding huzzah for all that nineteen gave to you, the lessons, the hardships, the joy and the sadness.  You have fought hard to embody yourself and I pray that as you read those words you are reminded of all you possess within.  May peace and loving kindness surround you today and always.  I love you more. 

Your Mother x