Slowing Down for a Moment

                                   Emma at our traditional IHOP birthday breakfast

I asked my husband, Paul, if he thought I had time to sit down before the next event. He said he hadn't seen me sit down much in the past few days.  I haven't gotten back up for several hours. 

Today, I woke-up late, as last night was Emma's birthday sleepover, which  was made up of only three girls, including Emma.  Being with three teenager girls ingesting sugar is like pouring Pop Rocks on the tongue. 

Wow. I have a teenage daughter. She was kind enough to let me hang out with her and the girls. I cannot count how many sleepovers I've attended, but I'd never given a thought that someday I would be at my own teenage daughter's party. 

Before the sleepover began, I went on a special trip to the store for iceberg lettuce. On my way, I felt compelled to call to my friend, Arlene, who more than likely was at my thirteenth birthday party. Arlene is phenomenal at keeping in touch with me. She sends cards on various holidays, calls to check-in, and has visited me more than once in Eugene. Arlene seemed as astonished as me with my news of becoming the parent of a teenager.

Emma's godmother gave Emma a great birthday gift, and with the gift was a note with the following a quote: 

As you journey through life, choose your destination well, but do not hurry there. You will arrive soon enough. Wander the back roads and forgotten paths, keeping your destination in your heart like the fixed points on a compass. Seek out new voices, strange sights and ideas foreign to your own. Such things are riches for the soul. And if upon arrival you find your destination is not exactly as you had dreamed, do not be disappointed. Think of all you would have missed but for the journey there, and know that the true worth of your travels lies not in where you come to be at the journey's end, but in WHO you come to be along the way.

-anon.