Twenty Years from Now: A Reflection

Today I stumbled on this post from a mom in Alaska who raises a challenge, asking us to post on the subject: "The next twenty years." Since the deadline is March 20, I need to get the lead out.

Twenty years from now ...

* I hope my daughter's fashion sense -- and her sense of adventure -- is as breathtaking as it is today.

* I hope to find the mates (or the courage to dispose of) the sixty bajillion baby, daddy, and brother socks that multiply like rabbits at the bottom of the "match-up" bin.

* I hope that at the end of my children's tumultous teen years, our relationship will remain intact, and that their birth family (who get to re-enter the children's lives when they are 18) will be a positive force.

* I hope that my husband and I will get to enjoy our lives together as grandparents (in twenty years, and not a moment sooner!). We married later in life (I was 35, he was 45), so this will be a gift I won't take lightly.

* I hope the world won't be so scary. Cancer and Parkinson's and Alzheimer's eradicated (without destroying other lives in the process). They will have found and permanently eradicated the gene that causes obesity, prejudice, and the desire to harm others.

* The grass will be greener, and the sky bluer, and all of us still able to get from Point A to Point B without having to remortgage the house or dip into our 401Ks. Maybe we'll be able to levitate by then.

* I hope my children will be able to overcome the challenges of their early years and find their rightful place in the world -- the place where their unique gifts and abilities will help them to make their mark on the world, and change it for the better. (Hopefully without having to sell their vital organs to pay for college loans.)

* I hope people will still find copies of my books at resale shops (or whatever the "archive equivalent" for the Internet is at that point, so they can find my adoption articles or blogs) and find a spark of insight on those yellowed pages.

* Most of all, I hope I'll look back on these "hidden" years of motherhood ... the hours spent washing, sorting, correcting, and standing in line at the post office and in the school parking lot, waiting to pick up or drop off ... and consider it time well spent.