In 18 years…

Julianna is born.

We barely even know her yet and certainly don’t know what she’ll want to become. What we do know, though, is that it’s our job and goal to make sure she’s set up for whatever life throws her way.

We will have 18 years to do it.

In 17 years…

It’s hard to believe she’s been in our lives for a year already. She is not clean and the hair…it’s everywhere. It’s hard to see her today and think about what she might end up doing with her life. She certainly hasn’t expressed any desire to learn anything other than how to get more of the food into her mouth than everywhere else.

Also, she’s quite patriotic and the hair, well, I also have really curly hair if I let it grow out but I’m not equipped with the necessary tools for how to properly comb this kind of hair. I probably have a little time before I’ll have to braid it for her but I suspect that’s coming soon.

In 13 years…

Julianna will definitely want to stand up in front of a crowd and perform in some way when she gets older. Even at five years old, she’s clearly already a natural. She has a vibrant personality, is silly, smart, empathetic, and filled with so much joy that it spills over to all the people around her.

Also, I don’t think I’ve mentioned it but she’s an incredible big sister. She takes care of Chloe. She expresses her love for Chloe a little like the way Lenny from “Of Mice and Men” would, but only in the good ways. She wants to hug and squeeze her sister and never let her go.

She is sweet and thoughtful and continues to demonstrate a level of grace and maturity that many people far older than her are unable to do…

…most of the time.

In 12 years…

I didn’t have Mixed Martial Arts fighter on my bingo card but we are a supportive family so if that’s what she wants to do, so be it.

In 11 years…

It’s hard to believe how far she’s come. She was terrified of Cassie the Dog for years but now, she’s gotten so comfortable with her that she regularly tries to choke the dog out like she used to do with her sister. I never predicted that she’d be a fighter when she was born but hey, stranger things…

She will also occasionally come with me to Fenway Park to watch Red Sox games. She hasn’t expressed a huge interest in sports and I think the reason she likes coming to Fenway is for the mac & cheese balls they sell at the park as well as the really cool opportunity to have a vendor throw a bag of peanuts at us from 100 feet away, and then learn she doesn’t like peanuts. Still, I’d never trade experiences like this for anything in the world, even if her vast knowledge of baseball leads her to ask, every time the crowd cheers, who scored a touchdown.

In 10 years…

I don’t know what to make of how she tends to enjoy a beverage, or two, at the same time. I suspect it might not bode well for her future social endeavors but one can’t be certain.

She does still get really sad at Fenway Park when the other team gets a basket. But also, she gets really happy, after the initial rocky start, when she gets to go to overnight camp. Camp was and is such a huge part of my life. I met many of my best friends, including my wife, at the same camp. I wonder if that will be true for her. I wonder if, like me, she’ll end up as a counselor at that camp for the youngest campers. I wonder if she’ll feel comfortable enough there to do wacky things like put a silly clown wig on in front of everyone.

In 9 years…

She does really love camp and now it’s become a full family affair. Chloe and my sister’s kids all go there too. This is a shared experience that they’ll have forever.

Although I’m fairly certain that there is something she won’t have forever: self-tinting glasses.

Great news though…her future MMA career is still going strong. She still loves to try and defeat her sister.

In 7 years…

Julianna has really come in to her own. We think she may have changed direction in her career aspirations but we’ll see. She is still going strong at camp and never puts up a fight when we ask her to take a picture.

In 6 years…

I’m not sure if you’re familiar with what was going in in 2020 but it was a pretty challenging time for everyone. Julianna, like so many kids, did her best to power through and adjust to the new way we were all living, temporarily.

In 5 years…

We are on the verge of high school and that means that we’re due for an exciting couple of years. As a teenager, which she is now, she’s really starting to spread her social wings. Her confidence is growing and her resolve to find happiness in every situation has strengthened.

As a parent, I don’t think I spent a ton of time during this period of her life thinking about what her life would look like 5 years from now. Middle school and Covid take up all the brain space. I think things will start to get real pretty soon.

In 4 years…

One of the things that has remained consistent is her love of hugs. While the frequency that she’ll grant her father one may have started to diminish to coincide with the beginning of her high school career, her appreciation has not waned.

We haven’t really started to talk about what happens after high school but one thing we do know at this point is that she has expressed that she’ll definitely want to be a teacher – and not just any teacher – a kindergarten teacher. She has always been wonderful with younger kids and she is now babysitting from time to time. Her warmth is contagious.

In 3 years…

Even though she’s now a full blown teenager, her willingness to partake in my shenanigans hasn’t been diminished…much. She has a great group of friends and is as happy to do something with them as she is to stay at home and “rot” on the couch. The self-tinting glasses are long gone.

She’s a great student, plays tennis, is madly in love with camp (still), and will spend a big chunk of the coming summer traveling around Portugal and Spain with her camp friends. We are not really talking about college yet but becoming a teacher is still the plan.

In 2 years…

We are on a family vacation in Mexico and I’m thinking, for the first time, that the opportunities for the four of us to do this together might be harder to do eventually. I don’t let it dampen my mood and I try to enjoy every moment but I’m starting to realize that very soon we will start visiting colleges and that means that soon after that, she’ll start applying to colleges and soon after that, she’ll go to college.

In 1 year…

We are visiting colleges all over the place. We are focused on universities that have great education programs. More specifically, she is looking for schools that give her access to practical, in-a-real-classroom, training for four years. She loves working with kids. She is working in the high school preschool. She will receive her preschool certification when she graduates from high school. She will work with kids at camp during the summer.

I am really enjoying going on the college visits with her. We have a fun game we like to play at each school we visit: we find a nondescript wall at each of the campuses, something that has no school logo or marking, and take a picture in front of it. We both think it’s funny knowing that some day we’ll look back at these pictures and have no clue where we were.

We went to this college.

And we went to this college on the same trip.

And who could forget visiting this college? There were others but I’ll spare you. With each visit, she readily played along for a long-play joke that might never come to fruition and might only be entertaining for the two of us, and maybe not even her.

Senior year of high school has started and now things feel really real. She has worked hard on her college essay and it’s great. She’s taken the SAT. She has great extra-curricular activities and gets great grades. She is a captain for the varsity girls tennis team. She’s doing everything she needs to do in order to put her best foot forward with any college she decides to apply to. Her “top choice” has changed about 100 times since we started making college visits.

She starts sending her applications. She wants to be patient, know all of her choices, and does not want to apply for “Early Decision” to any college. Even with some of her friends applying ED, she is okay waiting. She is more patient than I’ve ever been. I’m envious.

The applications are all submitted.

This year…

We wait. Senior year is underway. I find myself thinking about next year, all year.

Each time a decision comes in from one of the universities, the anxiety and excitement rises. This is the case even when the school is not one of her top choices. The first decision comes in a few weeks after she submitted and she got in. She had already decided that school was not where she’d end up going but it’s a good school and she felt a great sense of relief that, according to her meant, “even if I get into zero other schools, I get to go to college in a good place.”

But she didn’t get into zero other schools. In fact, she got into the next nine schools she heard from – which included two of her top choices.

Ten schools in a row.

Now it was time to make the real decision. With the help of a great teacher at high school and an intense giant PostIt note session at home, she told us she wanted to sleep on it but pretty much knew what she would decide. I booked the hotel for move-in weekend that night.

The next day she went into the CommonApp website and committed to college.

I officially have a daughter who is going to college. Soon.

We went on a vacation as a family. This time, for me, it really felt like it might get much trickier to schedule vacations moving forward. Soon, Julianna would be at college and then a year later, Chloe would be at college too. From there, who knows what the schedules would look like. Certainly, we’ll find ways to do it but this was the last time that we could guarantee that all of our schedules lined up.

Days from now…

We have already shipped boxes of stuff to the hotel we’re staying in for move-in weekend. Bags are being packed. We fly in a matter of days. She is excited and nervous and anxious and sad to leave home and can’t wait to get there.

I am excited and nervous and anxious and sad to see her go and I can’t wait for her to get there.

People keep asking me how I’m doing. They are asking how I’m feeling. Am I ready? Will I cry?

I keep saying the same things:

She is doing exactly what she should be doing. This is what we’ve prepared her, and us, for. This is and was and continues to be the goal we made as parents 18 years ago.

I know that she’s going to have the greatest time at college. She is going to a place where she has friends from camp and a place where she will make new friends. She will be far but not too far.

Today.

My wife and I just left Julianna at college.

Her dorm room is all set up.

She is moved in and has everything she needs.

I have no idea what happens next. When she’s done with college, maybe she’ll come live at home and teach in our home town. She has told us that she’d love to do that. We would love for her to do that too. She has at least four years to figure that part out but we don’t need to rush it. I have a feeling she’s going to love college – everything about it.

Everything she’s done for the past 18 years has led to this moment in time. She’s an adult now.

Today is also my birthday and while I’m not a big celebrator of my own birthday, today feels extra special.

Leading up to today, people have asked me if it would feel weird to leave her at college on my birthday.

This mission has been going on for 18 years. 18 years of hard work. 18 years of friends made and friends lost. Years filled with moments of sadness and hilarious pee-yourself laughter. Years filled with happiness and joy and tears and screams and eye rolls and high-fives and TikToks and hugs and messy rooms and bedtime stories and failures and successes. With skinned knees and overcoming challenges. Years of growth – both physical and mental. Years of agreements and disagreements – of teamwork.

18 years to get to this point.

18 years of pride.

18 years of love.

So no. It doesn’t feel weird to leave her at college today because what better gift could I get, as a parent – as a human – than to watch your daughter walk off on her new college campus, without me walking by her side, actually ready to start her next mission.