I Fear Karma's About To Pay Me Back in SPADES!!!

Yesterday morning, I chauffeured my eldest daughter to her first day of high school. It was an emotional event for both of us. For her, there was the usual and expected fears of a new school and all the inherent socialization issues potentially awaiting to ambush her within. For me, it was a rite of passage of an entirely different variety as I wistfully replayed the movies in my mind of each of the previous "first school day" car rides we had shared together. My mood was both melancholy and also imbued with a sense of paternal fear. I was all too aware that the young woman now sitting in the back seat was about to enter a fray unlike that she had ever experienced. And that my role as chief champion and protector might not "fly" anymore. Sure, she would always need her Daddy in some capacity. But very soon - all too soon - I know that my most important functions will be as a "wallet" and a "ride" and REALLY too soon, I would prove most valuable only as a wallet. I remembered the young girl who still required the protection of a car seat until mid-way through second grade. I remembered the gawky, buck-toothed, bespectacled adolescent who still carried a lunch box and eagerly reported her every thought, concern, social drama and achievement. Now the girl was no longer gawky, the braces achieved their purpose and been removed, contacts providing perfect 20-20 vision and her personal life still not a completed closeted diary, but more filtered and non-chalant. Like the majority of daughter's fathers before me, I let her off in front of the school and watched with hate as the older boys reviewed the new "freshwoman meat" arriving in droves to their campus. I sat in very organic and understandable sadness, processing the acceptance that my little girl was now entering her true learning years, while understanding that much of the learning would be about herself, her true heart and her choices.

I hope that all she has already learned from her mother and me will serve her well.

And I hope that I don't find myself compelled to break too many teen boys' legs.

Oy vey... And so it beeeeggggiiinnnnsss....