17 times around the sun

We spend a day each year taking note of another trip around the sun. This marks your 17th.

But there's one thing you might not know. It's that one day isn't nearly all that is celebrated inside your momma's head. Many days throughout your year(s), I look at you and feel like a spectator of an epic tale that you are writing.  I watch and see an event and feel the grandness of it. And the smallness of it. And sometimes I see it like a tiny dot on a long timeline of events. Other times I take the deepest of breaths trying to suck in every detail and imprint them on my memory so as to never forget.

I feel like new sunglasses, like a brand new pair of jeans

I feel like taking chances, I feel a lot like seventeen

I feel like windows rolled down, new city, streets and cabs

I feel like anything can happen, laughing,

You take me right back, when we were kids

Never thought I'd feel like this

Like when I close my eyes and don't even care if anyone sees me dancing

Like I can fly, and don't even think of touching the ground

Like a heartbeat skip, like an open page

Like a one way trip on an aeroplane

It's the way that I feel when I'm with you, brand new

Brand new

                                                -- Brand New by Ben Rector

I love being in your seventeen year old world.

I love being your mom.

Happy birthday sweet girl.
Love,
Mom