18.

I won’t bemoan what seems impossible.

The passage of so much time for which I can barely account.

It’s an endless theme.  And I already wrote about it yesterday.  (And probably a half dozen other yesterdays.)

18.

Today marks eighteen years of a world with Riley.

(That reality nearly makes me gasp.)

I always feel a little extra robbed when I start talking about time and my oldest daughter.

And when you don’t meet your own child until she is six years old – something does seem stolen.

I know she wasn’t mine those first six years, I know.  And I know without her first six years and all that mystery and not mystery that happened during those years, she would not be her and I would not be me and this would not be the same.

I know.

But the year that our first infant progressed to the magic number of six I became painfully aware of all that I had missed in Riley’s life.

All that I would never know.

All the birthday cakes and the firsts and the drawings and the hugs and the chasing away of monsters and the tucking in to naps and the cuddles and the safe safe safe feeling of being carried in your parents’ arms.

It’s not like the others.

It’s not as if I have just forgotten the baby smell and the favorite blanket and the first word and the tiny fist bumps.

I didn’t forget them.

I never knew them.

They didn’t belong to me.

And so when I look at a calendar and see March 20 – I feel the weight of not having enough years.

Of not being ready for this number.

This age of legal freedom, which as a long-time adult we know means so little but as a new adult they believe means so much.

18.

When I say it feels as if she should be 12, maybe that will make more sense now.

Happy birthday Riley.

The years have not been long enough.