This weekend is bittersweet for me. My oldest child, my daughter, has moved out on her own. With a roommate, into a studio apartment, but she's officially on her own. I still remember all the wonderful firsts with her - first smile, first tooth, first steps. She has given me so many precious memories of her as she's grown from newborn baby to young woman. She's always been full of confidence, at least to the outside world. Even when she's not completely sure of herself, she manages to project that she's okay and knows full well where she is headed. She is smart, talented, beautiful, courageous, charming, awesome, and I am awed daily that the cosmos chose me to be her mother. (I still wonder how I got THAT lucky or blessed.) She enriches the life of everyone who knows her. If she's reading this, she probably thinks I'm going overboard with the profuse exclamations of how incredible a person she really is.
I'm grateful for where her apartment is. The city isn't the safest of places anyhow, but the young folks are located in the College-Cultural center of Flint, which is about as safe as you can really get. I don't know about her roommate, but she is about 10-15 minutes walk from school or work or the library, so it's going to be good for her. The bus stops are nearby as well, which makes for easy transport around the area. It's hard to believe she's so grown up that she's keeping house on her own now. In my mind, she'll always be my baby girl. (And yes, I know that embarasses her some, but it's what's in my heart.)
But, oh, the memories.
There were all the times when she was a toddler, and I'd be picking up the house, and she had left a sippy cup on the coffee table. I'd pick it up, clean, put it back down, and here she'd come with a grumpy look on her face. She wouldn't say a word. There was just a glare at me for not putting her cup back in the correct spot as she picked it up and BANGed it back down on the table where she'd had it before. To this day, she still hates for people to touch her things.
There was the time she first heard Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera" on cassette tapes that my Mom had. Amber, four at the time, learned the whole score pretty much by heart and had all the voices down pat in just a few months. I lost count of how many times we had to replace the tapes because she wore them out. But she determined then and there that what she wanted to do when she grew up was to sign Phantom on Broadway, to perform Carlotta and Christine herself. She's in college, has been for a few years, to work on her vocal performance degree. It takes a lot out of her, but for those who've seen the videos of her and her friends in the Chamber Singers performing, you know she's got the talent, poise and confidence to do whatever her heart desires in her vocal career.
And with "Phantom" on my mind, there's the trip to Toronto she, Mom and I made a couple of times, to see it at the Pantages before a major rework of the theater. She was maybe five or six at the time, tops, and had grown to love the show as much as we did. So there we are, in the lobby of the Pantages, waiting for the doors to open so we can get to our seats, and she announces to the rest of the waiting attendees that when she grew up, she was going to sing the parts of Carlotta and Christine, "but not at the same time, because you can't do that since they're different people." One gentleman decided to call her on her singing. "So sing something for us," he challenged her. My darling daughter stands up straight, takes a deep breath, and we are all prepared for her to belt out something from the show. What does she choose to sing? The Barney Song. *sigh* Yeah. That's my girl!
Or the time she was a bit younger, learning her letters. Mom had taught her to write the "A" that starts her name. "You make a line up like this, then a line down like this, and then a line across like this. That makes an 'A' like in your name." So Amber grabs pen and paper, sprawls on the floor and starts writing As, chanting as she goes, "Up, down, across, make A," over and over. A little later, Amber was singing something so much that it caused Mom to look at her and say in exasperation, "Amber, would you PLEASE sing a different song?!" Amber replies, "Okay!" and starts wandering around singing, "Different song! Different song! Different song!" Mom just buried hear head in her arms on the desk and we both started laughing, as I said, "Well, you TOLD her to sing a different song!"
I could go on and on. This young woman has brought so much joy to my life, and to her Dad's. Granted, he's legally "just the stepdad," but he's Dad to her and that's what counts. He's pleased as can be that he gets to be her Dad. Every time he sees a photo of her, he gets misty-eyed. I'd say we're pretty darned proud of her.
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