My daughter just turned 21, a fact that is incomprehensible for competing reasons. One, because I feel like she just burst onto my scene a few minutes ago, rearranging my heart and priorities and understanding of what matters in an instant and forever. (Twenty-one years have passed? Impossible.)

Two, because I don’t remember life without her. (It’s only been 21 years? Impossible.)

I remember what I did and saw and learned before she was born. I remember who broke my heart and made me laugh and offered me jobs and all that stuff. But I don’t remember me without her. I’m not sure I fully inhabited my own life before I became a parent. I think I kind of followed along, like I was reading a book about this life I found myself living.

Then someone handed her to me and it hit me. You’re in charge. Of her. Of you. Of taking this gift of a human and keeping her healthy and trimming her fingernails and preparing her for the world and loving her unconditionally, unequivocally, for all time.

What a surprise. What an honor.

When she was a toddler, I used to hold her by her arms and swing her in circles in our living room, around and around, until we dissolved in laughter and dizziness and always, at some point, she would squeal........

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