The Inevitable Passage Of Time

There are several young people in my life and while many of them are on the mainland (kids of high school friends and such), my brothers' kids and C-Dawg's kid I see the most of, either in person or via photos and updates from their folks.

Because I talk to C-Dawg the most, I hear the most updates about her kiddo and, well he just got his full driver's licence.  (One of my nieces is of similar age so she's likely next, I assume.... brothers aren't great at telling me things!) This is... crazy.  C-Dawg and I are both struggling with this life fact (her more than me I'm sure) and all that it entails.

For me, my biggest *oh shit* moment was seeing my two youngest nieces the other week and the youngest really suddenly looks like a teenager.

Like that switch has happened from "kind of still a kid, maybe slightly a pre teen" to "that's a teenager".  And I'm slightly devastated.  I teared up when I saw her, and told her that was my right as her aunt and how lovely she looks etc etc and it hit me later that all those "aunt jokes" I heard growing up are like totally legit and true.

(I didn't have that experience of having aunts and uncles around growing up, for what it's worth - child of an immigrant and all that....)

I legitimately did the whole "you've gotten so BIG!" thing when I saw her and while I didn't pinch her cheeks, I do understand how when you don't see a young person every day there can be a really sudden and shocking change and the intense urge to say something about it is where, I assume, the jokes come from.

So yeah, at this time, I don't really have any more youngsters in my life, and no, no one is to mention the possibility of being a great aunt one day (JUST SHUSH!) and while I'm excited to see this next stage of all of their lives (post high school choices, driving or not, relationships, heartbreaks, jobs, careers, marriages maybe? etc etc) I'm also sad and missing the younger days.  Maybe especially around this time of year when picking out a gift for a youngling was a special delight. 

But yeah, my babies are all grown up.  (Although not really, as we all know....) And that's a little bit heartbreaking.  (And somewhat terrifying, quite honestly, that we let 17 year olds be behind the wheel OMG!)