An open letter from 2020 me to 2002 me.
Alternative title: Terra and Terra’s Excellent Adventure.
Dear Terra~
You don’t know it yet, but tomorrow you will meet your baby girl. She will FINALLY be here (almost two weeks late which I know feels like two years but don’t worry, this is just how she will always be. Keeping you waiting until SHE is ready and then you better BE. READY.) And you will cease to be the version of you that you are right now.
Today, on February 26 2002, is the last time you will ever be “just” terra.
From tomorrow forward, your heart will be walking around outside your body in the form of this wriggly dancing little girl with the big blue eyes and the infectious laugh and you will wonder how you ever LIVED before meeting her (or her sisters. Oh. Spoiler alert – three more are coming. Don’t pass out. You’ll be fine even if you do lose your mind. Which you will. More than once.)
But tomorrow will start the best adventure of your life~ You get 18 years they say – 18 years to teach this wriggly little human how to walk and talk and tie her shoes and sing her ABCs and handle friendships and broken hearts and big hurts and beautiful joys. 18 years to cram them full of everything they need to know before they go off into the Big World Out There.
And so many days those 18 years will seem to stretch out endlessly before you.
Well meaning old ladies in the grocery store will come pat your arm and tell you to “enjoy these days honey, they go so fast” and you will be barely keeping your crap together and begging her to please please tell you WHEN WILL THEY START GOING FAST BECAUSE THIS DAY HAS LASTED ALL WEEK and you just really really really want to sleep.
Those days will not feel like they are going fast.
You will feel bored to tears most of them. Watching the same Barbie movie over and over and over again. Picking up the same toys over and over and over again. Making the same snacks (because for some unknown reason your kids will never eat actual meals, they just endlessly SNACK to the point you hate the word snack and it makes you want to yank the wheel into a bridge abutment every time you hear it) over and over and over again.
But you also get to put those sweet babies to bed over and over and over again.
And hear “Mommy I love you” over and over and over again.
And be so filled with pride and love and emotion every time you watch them soar –
Over…and over… and over again.
So I know you don’t believe me now – but honey, these days will go by so fast.
BEfore you know it, you will be sitting and planning for dorm room decorations and talking about college courses with that wriggly little baby who still has beautiful big blue eyes and still makes you wait and still eats mainly snacks and you will have no idea how you got there.
But you will be so proud of her, terra. 
So very proud of the beautiful young woman you have raised.
She’s so smart. And wise beyond her years. And kind hearted without being a doormat. She is everything you could have ever hoped she would become. She is the best parts of you. And only a few of the bad. (But I mean really, is knowing how to lay on your horn as part of the driving experience in Chicago really bad? I mean, it’s more like survival but…wow when her road rage comes out, you are equal parts proud and shocked and it’s a weird feeling.)
The next 18 years are going to be full of some really big ups and downs. I won’t even try to prepare you for them because…
well, because I know that even if you knew what was coming, you would still decide to dance.
You would still get in and strap down for the ride that’s coming.
And I love that about you.
In fact it’s one of the best things you’ve instilled in those baby girls.
I know I know I know….you’re almost ten months pregnant and you just want to go have some pickle juice and oatmeal and go lay down. And this is all some overwhelming stuff, but I’m almost done.
Just….don’t blink ok?
That beautiful little girl they lay on your chest tomorrow night is going to be 18 tomorrow in my world and it is going to be one helluva ride. You will question yourself so many times over the next 18 years but I want you to know – you’ve got this.
You were born to be a mama, to be their mama.
Tomorrow will change you into the version of you that you were destined to become. It will still take every hour of every one of those days in the 18 years – the long ones, the hard ones, the scary ones, the belly -laugh filled ones – but you gotta LIVE through each of them.
So when the little old ladies come up to you in the store, and say to you “honey, these days go by so fast, enjoy them…” Pat their hands back and look them in the eye and say simply
“Thank you so much for the reminder”.
I’m raising a glass to you tonight dear sweet innocent Terra~
Because tomorrow….
The Adventure Begins.
(and don’t forget to party on. And be excellent to each other, dudes.)