Who Hit Fast Forward?

It's been so long since I've finished a post I started.  Maybe I'll finish this one?

I've been thinking a lot about how quickly time passes.  The old cliche of "it goes by so fast!" is actually a spoken truth.  I know that time doesn't actually speed up or change but when I look at my children, I wonder how we got here so fast.

Sarah is starting High School.  My first born, my baby that came so early in my life is suddenly on this journey of growing up.  I know it's sounds weird to say but I feel like this is the first step to losing her.  Losing the little girl who still curls up in my bed.  The one who gets so excited about things that she jumps up and down and squeals.  I'm afraid she's going to continue this growing and before I know it, she will be gone.  A memory of the babe once held in the crook of my arm, to my breast as she nursed throughout the night.  She's always been a night owl.

I feel like the last 8 years have been filled with pregnancies and babies.  Oh, have they ever!  But I also feel like I've missed out on little moments that I want to replay.  Instead, life is speeding up and thrusting my baby toward High School.  High School means College and College means moving out, living on her own and eventually getting married.  I'm afraid to blink.  I'm afraid I'll miss something little and won't have that memory to replay as I continue to gray.

It's all a part of life's balance and one I'm not quite ready for at this time.  I feel like life is just starting but it's been here all along.  Demanding to be felt in all the good and the bad.  So, I am choosing to accept it all and be present in the now and soak up the "I love you, Mom" and the little bits of attitude.  To breathe in the scent she leaves behind as she readies herself for the day, just not the scent she leaves behind in her room.  We are still battling the age old tale of The Teenage Room.

I'm trying to sneak away moments for her and I, no interruption from the littles.  Even if we sit in silence together, we are together.  I know I'm ready for the challenges that are to come, though some days I fear I'm not, I know we will face life together.  Breathe it in, live each day and make the memories our hearts need so desperately to hold on to when we are old and gray.