My baby’s not a baby anymore

It slips between your hands
Like water
This living in real time
A dizzying lifetime
Reeling by on celluloid

Between The Wheels – Rush
Grace Under Pressure

My daughter turned 18 a week ago, then graduated from high school Saturday. When I’d asked on social media “How did this happen?” I got the typical smart-assed response from my friends: “You know, a daddy and a mommy love each other very much and out comes ‘babby’.” Alternately, I got “Tab A into Slot B,” which is why these people are my friends, I suppose. Someone’s gotta be quick with a snappy comeback, and it would be them.

But, that was not quite the answer I was looking for. I know how that happens, even though what passes for sex ed is laughable in the US. What I meant to ask was “Where did the time go?”

It got away from me. It most surely did.

It seems like one day I was crying because she had outgrown her cute pajamas with the feet in them, and the next she’s walking across the stage as her name is called at her graduation. What happened to everything in between? It all went by so fast.

Could I please do it one more time, only a bit more slowly? Where’s The Doctor and his TARDIS when you need him? If only…