Eleven

{Abby, 11 years old | 12.10.10}

Eleven years ago I was a sophomore in college.

I was living in a two bedroom apartment on a tiny campus in the middle of the prairie with three other girls.  We waited in line to get a number at the end of our freshman year in order to be put in a pool to get one of the on-campus apartments because we couldn't stand to live in the dorms for one. more. year.  I was so excited to move into that apartment; what freedom it would bring after a summer of living at home and following (most of) my parents rules.  I worked the entire summer for a horrible woman to be able to afford my first car - a sweet little "previously owned" Corsica.  I was in the off-again stage of an on-again-off-again relationship and I was thinking about switching schools after spring semester.  I had the world at my fingertips.


And while I was making my winter break plans, who I was going to see and what I was going to do and the all important New Year's Eve Party Plans (because it was going to be the year 2000 - hello!); while I was reveling in being 20 and having the luxury of going to college and making plans and being concerned only with myself, somewhere a few states south, a little girl was being born, and that baby girl would change my life. 

{Abby & Uriah, Union Station | 12.10.10}

If someone had pulled 20 year old me aside that December, after my finals were over and my books were sold back and my Corsica was packed up with my stereo and my Doc Martins, and said to me: "A little girl is being born this month and someday you're going to be responsible for her and you're going to help raise her and you're going to ensure that she gets everything good that she deserves out of this life," I probably would have laughed at that person. 

And then I would have kicked them in their privates. 

Because eleven years ago, the heck if I was going to fall in love with someone who already had a kid...too much trouble, I would have said, too much drama.  Besides, when you're 20, you can make bold assumptions about the rest of your life, because the rest of your life is so far away.

But the rest of your life isn't eleven years from now.  It isn't even tomorrow.  It's today.  Now.  It's this moment.  You don't choose who you fall in love with.  You just fall, knowing that you've picked someone you want to hold hands with the whole way down and that you'll be together at the bottom. 

And when I finally fell, I was holding Uriah's hand with one and Abby's hand with the other.