The Blossom

The clock struck 11:00 p.m. and I suddenly could no longer breath. I didn't know what was happening to me. All I knew was that I was losing her.  And running out of time.  

In exactly one hour, my baby will be gone.  Julia will be eighteen.  An adult.  And she will one day leave me.  

The panic burned my lungs and my arms went numb as I carried box after box down from the top shelf of the laundry room.  The five boxes of pictures were in no order, but I was, for some reason, convinced that if I looked through each one I could somehow make sense of the situation, and stop it from happening.  I looked at picture after picture until a tear slid down my cheek, who then invited about a hundred others to follow, who in turn invited my voice to wail, in pain, like a sick moose. It was a symphony of desperation apparently loud enough to wake Maya, my youngest child, who ran to my side. "What happened, Mommy? I'm scared!"  The only words I could compose were "I'm out of time.  I'm out of time.  I'm out of time."  She retrieved her older sister, my middle child Samantha, from bed and she, with a compassionate, maternal, knowing look on her face held me in her arms and asked me what was wrong. 

I tried super hard to sound rational this time and explained calmly "I have looked through thousands of pictures and I am only in six of them with Julia.  I think I did something wrong and I am sure that it is too late to fix it."  Samantha simply grinned, and reassuringly explained to little Maya, "Mommy is fine.  It is just her time of the month for the period thing."  It was not.  Crap, on second thought, it might be!  After filing away my lack of personal calendaring skills in my mental file called "All The Stuff Rachelle Fucks Up" I was pleased to see that the little one, after having heard the word "period", laughed herself back up to bed for good this time.  

My middle child hugged me again, calmly explained that it was time for me to go to bed, that Julia was fine, safe and healthy, and that I could take a bunch more pictures of her tomorrow.  I realized then, when she said that "I" could take more pictures, that the reason there weren't many pictures of me and Julia was not because I was an awful mom, rather because I was THE mom, and therefore, was always behind the camera.  I took a deep breath, cautiously stepped out of the the irrational sector, and into my comfy bed.  I slept peacefully throughout the night.

Not knowing what direction our new mother - daughter relationship would be taking, I woke up with a bittersweet, thoughtful, cautious and nervous feeling floating around in my gut. Julia came into my room and informed me that she would prefer to spend her actual birthday out on the town with her friends, and would like to celebrate with her family on Saturday.  I told her that was totally fine, that I would make reservations for Saturday, and asked her which friends she would be hanging out with for the big bash tonight. "Sarah, Brandon, Camille, Beth, Taylor, Dakota and YOU."  she said with an impish smile on her face. 

Once again a tear slid down my cheek, but this time only one.  And then I knew.