The Beauty of Years Gone By

Holly and Greg..., originally uploaded by reasonenoughtocelebrate.

My cousin Holly and her fiance Greg had their wedding rehearsal and dinner tonight. I'm reading scriptures for the wedding tomorrow and my sister's helping with the guestbook, so we happened to be invited.

I've known Holly was engaged for awhile now -- she's even been dating Greg for three years. But for some reason, it didn't really hit me that we weren't still too young to be married. It's been a wake up call thats for sure -- as it was watching Christine, Lauren and Cera get married over this past year.

But to see Holly -- someone I've watched go through all of life's great moments ahead of me -- actually walk down the aisle on my uncle's arm in her little sundress... I honestly felt like I was dreaming. Even though it was just the rehearsal, it wasn't a real moment I was living.

I remember watching Holly learn how to ride a two-wheeler and then having her teach me (ME! A little kid!) in their famiy's backyard. I remember seeing her collection of "Special Edition Barbies" that were even so valuable we weren't allowed to take them out of the box. I remember how she used to do my makeup when I came over, because I didn't know how to do it myself. I remember how she was one of the leads in her high school musical... and I remember being so excited that she even had a solo. Holly graduated high school - and I was there, shocked that within four years it would be me as well in the cap and gown.

She's gone to college.
She's started teaching high school kid.
She now has her own class.

She moved out of her parents house and bought her own.

All of a sudden, it wasn't the girl I had watched climb to the very top of the tree in my grandparent's backyard all those years... it was this amazing, 27-year-old woman who just astonishes me in every way. And suddenly, I found myself (yet again) looking at her in amazement and thinking "that could never be me."

Just as I have every other step of the way through life,
Only to realize someday it would be me.

And I'm not sure what terrifies me more now - the fact that we aren't all kids anymore... or maybe just that pretty soon, I may really have to accept the reality that *I* am no longer a child with a Wiffle bat in my Pap's backyard trying to hit the ball as she throws it towards me.