5. • sometimes a great notion.

31 Notes

5.

Today my brilliant and amazing daughter turns five years old. It’s one of those ages that still seems small to others - a five year old hasn’t even started school yet after all - but so impossibly big to someone who has known her since her very first day, her very first minute on this earth. That somehow that first minute was five years ago tonight, that she has grown from that to this, is beyond amazing to me.

Time acts in strange ways once you become a parent; everything seems too fast and too slow all at once. I remember precisely what I was doing five years ago this very day and can’t believe so much time has already passed since those life-changing handful of hours, but at the same time, I can’t really ever remember a world without her in it. I mean, I can remember a time when I wasn’t a father, I just can’t imagine what it was actually like any more. It rearranges your whole self, your whole identity so entirely that it becomes like trying to remember what it was like to not know how to read, or to drive a car, or to play the guitar. I’m aware there were times in my life when I didn’t know how to do any of those things, I just can’t put myself in that mental space any more.

Anyhow, happy birthday to my delightful, ever-curious, charming, hyper-intelligent, artistic, musical, imaginative, hilarious, compassionate, and beautiful little girl. You have made every minute of the last five years better than all the lifetime of minutes that came before January 9, 2007.

We love you so much, kiddo.