My Old Pal, Eight

For the past few nights my daughter has been quietly crying herself to sleep. I found her doing this one evening on accident. I ran upstairs to grab something and instead of finding a sleeping girl, I found her weeping. I quickly asked her what was wrong, and she replied with, "I don't want to turn nine."

My daughter's birthday is Friday, December 21st. Winter Solstice. She was a c-section baby and this date happened to fall among the ones I could choose. There is something about her. Always has been. She is quiet. An observer. I think it has something to do with being born on the first day of winter. Like a rite of passage.

When I inquired about why she doesn't want to turn nine, the flood came.

Then the sobs.

Then the reasons.

She feels like she is growing up too fast.
She doesn't want to go to middle school.
She is going to miss Hiawatha.
She is going to miss all of her teachers.
She doesn't want to be an adult.
She doesn't ever want to leave me.
She feels like she is growing up too fast.
She is going to miss her old pal Eight.

When I was telling a friend about this, she reminded me of the short story "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros. And that had me thinking about the beginning of the story.

"What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t. You open your eyes and everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today. And you don’t feel eleven at all. You feel like you’re still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven."

So for my daughter's ninth birthday, I think we will make a list. A list of all the things she cherished about being eight.

And another list. A list of all the things she will look forward to about being nine.

Celebrating our soon to be nine year old