I Have Seen the Future

(and it broke my heart a little bit.)

Picture Monkey, arms stretched to the sky. She is wearing a cute peasant skort and a white tank top. She is dancing under bubbles that float up and up to the sky.

She is joy embodied; she is arms and legs and feet and hair and blue eyes and smiles and freedom.

And I flash to her at 16, or 18, or 22 years old, laughing and free. And I know any boy looking at her will surely lose his heart. And when I see it happen I will think of this day, the day my daughter was dancing under bubbles with skinned knees.

And I will think, “That was yesterday.”

For now I can say it: It was yesterday. And I hope I always carry that yesterday in my heart and in my head. We will need those yesterdays: we mothers, and we daughters, and all of us who have ever loved.

All those yesterdays for all those tomorrows.