10

Your daughter turns ten just once.

I am filled with wonder and gratitude and hope and love and apprehension and purple and pink make-up all over the bathroom. If the world ends tomorrow I will cherish every moment of these last ten years as the very best of my life. Or if there is an eternity I would do it over and over and over and over and over for ever. But neither is. So now I must think about when she turns 11 and 17 and so on. 

Vivian - you are my treasure and my puzzle. You come jumping into my arms from ten yards away. You won't say "I love you". You can't spell "atom". You figured out how gravity and thermonuclear explosions cancel each other out to keep the stars burning. You lie about brushing your teeth. You lie to keep your brother from getting into trouble. You can't focus on what I ask you to do. You don't hear the world around you when you have your nose buried in your book.

As I type these words I look out over the Charles and see the glistening Great Dome of MIT. Harvard is just a bit further downstream. Before you were six months old we were in Boston for a holiday and I pointed to MIT and told you that I wouldn't be entirely unhappy if you went to college there. And played soccer. And sailed. Jo smiled. 

Soccer ain't happening. So I'm closer to understanding (the knowledge part was much easier) that you are your own person. And that I need to stop projecting my desires and dreams on your life. So I love you - anyway and always and even if you don't go to MIT.  

By the way, here's what you looked like when you were a tadpole.

Happy Ten. Reconsider soccer.

Love

-dad