Tonight I got to watch my daughter perform at her first Piano Recital.

In front of about 100 people (family and friends of all the kids performing, of course), she played 4 short pieces. She was great – not nervous or scared to get up in front of people, she played well, it was a marvelous night, and I was very proud of her. Watching her, I started to think about all of the other ‘firsts’ Jeanne and I will go through with the kids – their first dates, loves, heartbreaks, all the way through maybe sitting someday and watching her watch her child’s first piano recital, the way my mom did tonight.

Nights like this you think about the future. Grateful for the past, it’s funny to think of how time moves. The future. Someday we’ll look back at it and reminisce about it as ‘the past’, but until then… much mystery. Maybe she’ll give up Piano, and not want to do anything musical. Perhaps she’ll be an artist, like she says. Maybe she’ll be an electrician, like her uncle. A gardener, a stay at home mom, a single business executive wheeling and dealing in the corporate world. A teacher, like her mother?

The future. The mysteries. She’ll solve them, in her own way. In her own time.

She took another step tonight.