Oh how the years fly past

It’s my eldest daughter’s birthday today. She’s nineteen. Quite the young lady. Strangely it is on days like this rather than on my own birthday that I feel old. I mean really old. Tired old. As my memory stretches back over those nineteen years I remember. I remember the birth (Caesarian), I remember first holding her (she was, and still is, so small), her first tears, her first everything it seems. It all feels so long ago. I know it isn’t maybe in human terms but it is in one human’s (me) terms. I don’t think it is the actual time elapsed since her birth that makes it seem such a long time but, rather, all the many, many events, both good and bad, on the path of our joint travel through life that contribute to this feeling. It is also on days like this that I look to the future and see that one day, maybe soon, maybe later, that that path will diverge. And one day, maybe soon, maybe later one of those paths will end. Yep, today I am feeling old. Really old.