About 13 years ago, my sister and niece were visiting. We got caught in a horrendous traffic mess on the way in to town along 395, and spent forever just c-r-a-w-l-i-n-g along. It was hot, the windows were rolled down, and no one was having any fun staring at the endless line of brake lights stretching down the Lincolnia valley and back up again. From the carseat in the back came the contribution of a little voice: "Go away, cars! Shoo, shoo!"
It didn't work, but it was a cute moment from a cute little girl.
Fast (very fast) forward 13 years to their visit this week, in which Niecey is not only a holder of her own driver's permit, but is beginning to look at colleges down here. Yesterday they toured the University of Maryland and she fell in love with it; last night we met with someone from church who just graduated from George Mason University here in NOVA and she could hear all about life at Mason. She also has James Madison and my own alma mater, American, on her list of places she wants to look at over the next year.
Somehow it just doesn't seem right that we're looking at colleges for that little three-year-old. But she's very definitely not three any more, and during her Sweet Sixteen celebrations here this week she's taking her first steps into what will truly be her own life. While it's thrilling to see, it's also strangely saddening, with a sense of the passing of so much time.
This week also brought another sense of the hastening of the years. Our in-house newsletter had asked for submissions of interesting/odd/unusual pre-Bureau employment, so I sent in a couple of paragraphs and a photo of me in the air studio at 95XXX. It ran this week, and so I've had calls, e-mails, and light ribbing from throughout the organization. But what strikes me is the same sense of time as with our college-bound niece: it just doesn't *feel* like 21 or 22 years since that picture was taken, and yet I'm closer to being eligible for full retirement (14 years this summer) than I am to my first days at 95XXX.
"I'm not THAT old," my ego wails.
"Oh yes you are," my left knee replies. "Now get me a Shiner."
I, too, find it quite odd that the time has come to seek places for my baby to attend for college...it just can't be true. She is rather excited about all the prospects for change and handed me the laptop the very night we returned to VT to look at jobs in NoVA/DC/MD...yes, she is determined.
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