Where has time flown?

In a year, she will know.

In a year, she will have made the decision.

Where has the time gone?

That was what I was thinking yesterday morning when Kate crawled into bed with me.

“I don’t feel well,” she said.

“Do you feel OK to go to school,” I asked.

“I just need five more minutes of sleep then I will get ready.”

Five minutes.

That’s how fast the last 17 years seem to have flown.

It seems like it was only minutes ago Kate was 1 years old and going to work with me at the Sandy Post. As she snuggled close, I marveled how the little girl I used to carry in a backpack or used to sleep on my chest as I wrote stories now towers above me. It seems like only days ago, we wore the same shoe size. Now my feet swim in her shoes.

In a year, she’ll decide where she wants to go to college. In a few weeks, she takes the SAT. Between now and next April, she has lots of decisions to make. She needs to find a dress and shoes for the prom, who she is going with and where they are going to dinner in the next week. There are letters from colleges arriving in the mail box and my email box that she needs to sort through. Letters from schools as close as Portland and far away as New York.

With a year to go, I worry have I done enough, given her the tools she needs to pursue her goals, provided the right life lessons…

I look down at my teenage daughter – who is growing quickly before my eyes. I marvel at what she has already done, how intelligent she is, how kind she is, how much she reflects on things, how confident she is in who she is... and how I wouldn't want her to be anyone but her.

Yes, I know she’s ready for whatever she decides to do, whatever path she decides to take. She’s ready for the next step in her life.

I look at the clock – it’s been nine minutes since she crawled into bed. I hope she knows wherever she goes, whatever she does, whatever decisions she makes that I will always be there for her.

“Kate, it’s been five minutes,” I tell her. “It’s time for you to get ready and go.”