Last weekend, my oldest daughter and forever middle child had her first full-length ballet recital. I cried. (Of course.) She didn’t. She flitted onstage and off, fully embracing her butterfly role. Oh the pride. To see her up there in her blue flowing dress, flowers in her tightly wound orange hair. To see the older dancers and remember my own years on stage.

I had to hold back. I had to stop from thinking about myself. About my own childhood. Adolescence. About all that I wanted to accomplish and haven’t yet. About all that I have accomplished—love, a life together, these children! About the fact that my dreams are different now than they were when I wore a tutu on stage. And yet. Just seeing dancers from our small ballet troupe in this home-grown production brought me so quickly back to my own experiences. To the acute realizations of just how much dancing made me who I am today. I should have been prepared for the emotional onslaught. I wasn’t.

I have to let my daughter find her own way. I have to expose her not only to the things I love and the things that made me who I am but to so many other things, too. She’s an artist, this daughter of mine. To the core. She draws and paints. Makes books and sculptures. She dances and—I learned just last night—sings in the shower. She sees the world for it’s color and texture and beauty. And when we are on a walk and see a unique butterfly—or raccoon footprints in the mud—the words “Mama, take a picture” ring in my head almost before they come sweetly from her freckled lips. And as I pause to put away the camera, she continues walking, leading the way.

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Originally posted in May 2011