growth & devlopment review

1 - Receive black patent leather purse from grandmother. Own mother is only 22, still freckled & very new herself .

7 - Mother wraps presents in pink paper & makes birthday fudge with no walnuts, invites a house full of little girls over to tea. Understand for first time that not all mothers love their daughters as well mine.

12 - Go with family into big city to spend day choosing Christmas gifts for each other at Seibu & Parco. Amidst neon swirl of decorations and holiday music, feel both cozy and cosmopolitan. That night, dine in fancy restaurant before dashing through downtown streets to find our seats in the big concert Hall. The Russian Men & Boys choir sounds like heaven on earth. Float home on cloud of family, love, and music. Will spend rest of life trying to step back the feeling of that that night.

15 - Mother intercepts me coming out of library with news of Bulgarian judge's approval of adoption petition. Suddenly feel like even older, oldest sister, with twice the number of little ducklings following behind; twice the weight of responsibility to shoulder.

16 - Leave Japan right after birthday. Spend last week wandering through grey streets, hugging trees, and crying on the steps of the old elementary building. Start to fixate on the fleeting seconds, how they slip through fingers, blink & then disappear. Beginning of tortured affair with the passage of time and the grip of nostalgia. Also realize how much better to be leaving than left.

17 - Receive book of poetry, inscribed in father's handwriting: We're so proud of you and it has nothing to do with test scores. Understand keenly the importance of saying things. Even things, especially things, that go without saying.

20 - Spend day in library, sulking & pretending to study. Act like ungrateful wretch when Grace drags out of book piled carrel for "study break" which turns out to be swanky surprise party. John sets up strobe light in the kitchen and long-loved-boy walks me down to the sea and points out planes in their holding patterns overhead. Dance to Otis Redding & DMX in the kitchen and eat spaghetti at 3 AM. Life shimmers with possibility, beautiful friends. Feel very grown up, invincible, like life could possibly go wrong, but wouldn't dare.

22 - Wake up to the news that Saddam Hussein has been pulled from his hole in the ground. Get home from day of cramming in library to learn that John has died by his own hand. In coldest, darkest night, college boyfriend strips down to his underwear and does cartwheels in the snow in attempt to make me smile, to prove that we are still alive and fine.

25 - Kiss long-loved-boy in the back of bar. Squirrel flips her lid and takes 2:00 am Chinatown bus to NYC. Spend next day alone, thinking of danger in getting what you want, the paralyzation that comes of endless choices and no one to tell you the right thing to do.

28 - Psychiatric Nursing Exam. Studying provokes desire to tear hair out and new understanding of old adages that Youth is wasted on the young and If I only knew then what I know now. Even so, experience extreme gratitude for ability to think, feel, remember; the great, fragile gift of a sound heart & mind.