My Daughter Will be Driving

My eldest daughter turned fifteen on me a few months ago. That means we're in the downhill slide into getting a license. It's no longer this "when she grows up" thing. In fact, she goes to the driver's ed part of things here in just a couple of weeks.

http://www.gettingorganizedtoday.com/dreamstime_LittleGirlDriving.jpg

That's not her in the picture, but that's very much how it looks in my head when I imagine it. In reality, she's 5'9", that kind of fifteen-year-old who looks seventeen--so grown up and gorgeous that it's amazing to think that such a creature sprung from my loins. But, she is and always will be my little girl, too.

Like every parent who ever arrived at this moment (I suspect), I am both excited and terrified by the prospect of my girl behind the wheel. It's another one of those big moments, like when she learned to walk, or lost a baby tooth, or took off her training wheels, or performed her first solo, or got her braces off, or fell in love. In every one of these moments, I've reacted the same way. Part of me has wanted to cry and cling to the younger version of her and rail against the heavens for letting her grow up too fast. Part of me is proud of her, and anxious to see what this next phase of life brings us.

I know I'm lucky in that my daughter is an intelligent and capable young woman, with common sense and a good sense of self-preservation. I teach middle school, so I know a lot of teenagers. Some of them are complete flibberty-gibbets and I worry about them riding bicycles, let alone operating vehicles with engines. My girl is not one of those. She'll handle it well.

The question is, will I?