12 years ago today

So I've been dealing with a lot of random feelings about my baby girl turning 12 tomorrow. Actually today since it's 12:23 am... but she was born in NC where it is still only 6:23pm - on the 19th. And since she wasn't born until 7ish in the morning add another few hours and I'm technically correct on the whole tomorrow thing. I'm just smart enough to not try to pull that one out with her and deal with the whole preteen drama throwdown that is liable to ensue...

Anyhow.

12 years ago today I was scared to death. I didn't know what I was getting into but I knew that it was a choice I had made knowing full well that life as I never had a chance to know it would never be the same. I was between my junior and senior years of high school and 99.9% of the people who knew me honestly thought that the news of my having a baby was a cruel joke and couldn't grasp me being in that particular situation. Because at that point in time, you see... it was a "situation". As in "how could you have gotten yourself into this 'situation'" or "I just don't know how we're going to deal with this 'situation'"...

Twelve long, hard, beautiful, maddening, facinating, enlightening, survivalist years later? It's no longer a 'situation' that needs to be 'dealt with'... it is a child. A young woman. A lovely blessing. A hormonal confusion. A daughter. It's just Katy. And I'm just mom. Something that I couldn't see forward to 12 years ago today. I just knew that this was my child, my cross to bear, my life to mold, my twist of fate. And I took a leap of faith, having no faith to leap on. It was hard, I won't sugar coat that. It was definately no bed of roses and sometimes I feel like I didn't live up to my potential. But then I look at my children and think that maybe my potential was not to live into my OWN greatness, but to press forward and help them discover theirs.

I haven't always done right by Katy. I haven't always made the best decisions or packed the healthiest lunches (the trip to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing where I missed the memo about a bagged lunch and we all ate random snackfoods for lunch... not nutritious, but I was totally the coolest mom on the chaperone list...)... but I have ALWAYS known that I was meant to accept the responsibility and the challenge that would be Kaitlyn Rae Binkley. I knew that I was to learn and to teach, to nurture and be loved, to grow and to help grow... I knew that we were meant to be.

There have been times where I have questioned my sanity and my committment, there have been times where I knew without a doubt I was failing... but there has never been a time where I haven't known that my single most important purpose on this earth was to be a mom... even if the title DID claim me before I could vote and even before I graduated high school... This is who I am, and I wouldn't be who I am without who SHE is.

Katy has been with me throughout some of the hardest lessons in my life. She has remained an innocent player in the game of life and has battle scars inflicted by the trials and uncertainties that being the daughter of a teenaged mother can subject a child to. In spite of her beginnings and the sadness and anger which resulted from the 'situation' she was unknowingly the seed of, she immediately won the hearts of even the most rooted nay sayers. All it took was one look from that beautiful bundle of joy and everyone knew, just KNEW that this child was meant to be and was destined for awesomeness.

Now here we are, on the eve of her last year of official childhood, and I still know that this child is destined for awesomeness. And I have a renewed faith in myself, too... because after all is said and done, I haven't failed after all. I have succeeded... and my first notable accomplishment was standing my ground and accepting the gift of Katy.

Happy birthday to my first born, my life changer, my first love. Happy birthday to Katy.