Temporal Parenting

I love sci-fi. I'm a huge geek, I watch Star Trek, Eureka, Stargate and many other science fictiony shows. I'm proud of my geekiness and hope to instill some of it in my daughter. One thing you notice if you wathc enough sci-fi is that no sci-fi series worth it's warp drive would leave out an episode or more dealing with a temporal distortion. The characters are usually accidentally hurled into another time after encountering a distortion in the space-time continuum. God forbid they should meet themselves or the universe could be torn asunder! I know what you're thinking. Exciting stuff!

Now before you slump into a catatonic state there is a reason I mention all of this. As a parent I find myself in an almost permanent temporal paradox. My baby is now 6 months old and all I can think is; "where the hell did the time go?!". I can't help having visions of her as a little girl, going to school, dance class (if she wants), getting older, becoming a teenager, getting a boyfriend, me beating the crap out the boyfriend, then her going to university, doing what we all did at uni, me putting my fingers in my ears and humming when I think of it or overhear her talking about it, her leaving home and having a life of her own. It's terrifying, only because I come to inevitable conclusion that she'll have to stop being a permanent fixture in my home and life. She'll become an independent, self sufficient woman (hopefully) and won't need me nearly as much. I love that I can hold my daughter in my arms and she feels secure enough to fall asleep there. It saddens me slightly, to think that she'll grow and no longer fit in the crook of my arms, that I won't be able to give her that same sense of peace and calm any longer.

It's not all bad though. I do have other, happier thoughts. I imagine how Carys will look as she grows, how she'll sound. What she'll be like as a teenager (awesome, intelligent with plenty of substance, none of this OMG crap.). I imagine her during her graduation, I wonder what she'll want to do. I try to imagine what she'll be like as she hits her 20s but I can't really conceive of that right now. She's still so little. And chubby.

As much as I live in the present with my daughter, every so often I'm catapulted into the future by my mind's very own temporal distortions. Much like the Scotty and his mates, I never know what to expect, all I can hope is that I don't screw things up completely for everyone.