About a week ago, my oldest daughter Aub came home from spending time with her grandmother. She was talking about something her grandmother said to her, and she laughed, shrugged, and said, “I think I’ll always be ten in her mind.”
Oh baby girl.
Embrace it.
Isn’t it funny how when I was growing up, I so wanted to be treated like I was grown? I wanted to make my own choices and my own decisions. I wanted a job and a car and my own space and all that goes with those things.
And then when I got them…..
it didn’t take long for me to miss what I had before.
Like, say, when I was ten.
The older I get, the fewer people there are who still see me as a ten-year old, and even fewer who, when my name is on their lips, make me feel ten again. There are very few who say my name as it was given to me, and who remember me as I was back then.
And that makes me sad.
So dear baby girl, don’t let it frustrate you when you know she is seeing you through the lenses of eight years ago. Be thankful and soak it all in. Too soon you will be my age and look back and miss her voice and how she called your name, searching the house for you, when you were one, three, eight, ten, and eighteen. You will miss the intonations of her voice as the syllables that flowed pronounced your name as only she can. Love on her and give thanks. Even when she treats you like a child.
Because one day you will want to be a child again, and you’ll look around for a grownup to turn to…..and you will find out that it’s you. You are the grownup now. Wishing someone would see you as ten again.
Love you, ‘Dre
I Might Need A Nap 