This is what I want you to wear, you said. You always knew exactly what you wanted.
I took in the purple dress and corduroy trousers and nodded vigorously.
But what if they don't have it in the store by then? I screwed up my little nose and silently approved of my forward thinking.
We can buy it now just in case!
But you were seven, and I was six, and Pumpkin Patch might as well have been Prada. We determined to save.
And then you moved to Germany, just like that. What's a ten-year-old to do when her best friend is on the other side of the world? I cried.
About three years later, you moved back, and your mind was fertile with life and ideas and initiative. I was naive, home-schooled, sheltered. You had boyfriends, and I couldn't relate. They were scary.
Seven years on, and we caught up for coffee. I found out you would be marrying a boy. The Boy we had spent hours dreaming about. As little girls we had talked about what he would look like, how he would dress, where you would live, how many kids you wanted.
Three days ago, I stood in a paddock next to your house and watched a ceremony that confirmed the death of our childhoods.
I sat on the very seat where we planned the event fourteen years ago. I stood on the steps where you told me about Sex and I thought you were telling me an extravagant fib. (That's disgusting! Nobody would ever do that.) The trampoline where you taught me about French kissing is gone.
Watching you marry Boy was just as heartbreaking as it was beautiful. I didn't mean to become an adult. I didn't mean to leave those dreams behind. I didn't mean to let titles body paperwork degrees busy taken jealous facebook mine woman money cool leaving define me.
I hope you're as happy as you said you would be.
Do you still want 10 children?
