teen dream

This summer my niece became an official teenager.  It gave me pause.  Not for her sake, but for the memory of what being that age was like for me and how totally and completely different it seems to be for her.  She's cooler than I ever was.  She's more worldly than I'll ever be.  She's more confident and beautiful than most.   And, as an only child, she's got parents who are joyfully determined to give her more than the sum of her teen years.

She once told her mom that she thinks of me as both her Aunt and her sister.
That seems about right.