A Promise

This post is for you, Mom.

Mom, now that I’m 16 I want to promise something. Both to you, and to myself.

Now, it’s going to be a long time before I start dating, and that’s kind of the point of this post. Right here, right now, I want to promise you something.

I want to promise that I won’t always be wanting to be somewhere else, or with someone else.

Sure. Sometimes I’ll be having a bad day, I’ll have woken up grumpy and it will be a bad hair day and it will be a hundred degrees out and the weeds have all grown two feet taller overnight and I’ll want to cry all day, and yes, I won’t want to be there.

And those days you’ll wish I was somewhere else too

But I want to promise that I will cherish my life at home, and my time with you. Because believe me, in my generation I see kids who I can tell just don’t want to be there. Who don’t want to be with their family, or at home.

Of course why would you want to be with your family who has lived with you and helped make you who you are, and who loves you and always will, no matter what stupid attitude you have, when you could be with someone else you started dating two weeks ago? I mean really.

So yes. I want to promise my family this. Because I know it will be a long time until I start dating, until I move out. . . and I want to promise this now, so that you can hold me to it.

I want to play games and eat ice cream and hot brownies on Sunday. I want to watch a show and go to bed early so we can get up and make our bulletproof coffee early, early in the morning together. I want to watch Titanic while wrapping presents. I want to sing loudly while doing dishes after supper. I want to do home blessings on Fridays and weed more then anyone could ever enjoy, and start watering the blueberries and splash you with the hose.

I want to laugh with you all. I want to have big family birthday parties where we start making earrings out of tin foil, or have the Young Family Christmas where Timmy hides his face from the pictures, and Andrew ties ribbons to his beard, and my brothers all go and make coffee, and I get to have my nephew and niece all to myself for awhile. . . I want to enjoy the little things. I don’t want to lose any of this.

And I won’t. I want to always be there. I don’t want to be sitting wanting to be somewhere else, when where I am is perfectly wonderful.

So hold me to this. Because I’ll forget. I’ll go to a party and a dance and out to a movie all in one week, and not stay home. But then the next week I won’t have anything and I’ll stay home with you, and we’ll watch a movie and have homemade pizza for supper, with lots of olives. So remind me. But do it gently. Don’t forget. . . it’s not just me.

Mum and Dad-one more thing; I’m always going to be your baby girl. Thank you so much for everything you do for me. And though someday I’ll leave you, I’ll always love you.