- I'll try to sew you Halloween costumes as long as you'll let me.  Especially onesies with animal ears.
- I'll write you letters each year of your life, to look back on and know how much you were loved even before you could understand.
- Your friends can feel welcome at our house and feel safe on their bad days.  I hope you learn to comfort others and sit with them in their sadness.
- We can have cheat days and eat all the cookies we make.
- I hope you learn to love life, and live fully, and find a purpose that sets your heart on fire. 
- I pray that you rest in Him all your days.  When you fall, that you'll turn and seek Him.  That you'll be safe.

I've been told that I should pray about you.  So here it goes:

- I hope you let me change your wardrobe (if you need the help, of course ;))
- I'm going to need a lot of alone time, not because I'm annoyed with you but just because that's how I refuel.  I hope you're okay with that.
- Hopefully you're good with kids... because you're probably going to have to be the Fun parent.
- Please feel safe with me.  Show me your thoughts, worries, random daydreams, mistakes.
- Don't be afraid to keep digging deeper, gently, over time.  Even when I hesitate.  Because I want to be known, but no one has ever really understood until you.
- I pray that you're waiting patiently for me, as I am for you.  That you don't get too discouraged or lonely.  That you're able to find joy in the day to day as you strive to make the world better in your own way.
- Life your life to the fullest.  Now.  There's only so much time we have.  And whatever time we'll have together, let's make it the best.
- Come watch a sunrise with me once a year.
- May who you are and will be, be because of Him, inside and out.

I don't remember there being a dandelion season.  But days on days, countless tufts of white fluff have floated through the air like gentle spring snow or tiny feathers of faeries.  They gather on my eyelashes tiny, lazy wishes and I wonder if they are each one being granted.

That morning, I awoke to one simple sentence in my inbox that threw my well-intentioned plans and imaginations for the next 4 - to 30 - years to the wayside.  I realized that the lacquered door I had been knocking at for months until my knuckles bled had always been bolted shut.  When I finally turned away in cold clarity, I was shocked to find right beside it a door open ajar just enough for me to slip through.

Yes, it hurts that my best - truly, my best - was not enough and that I was last pickings, a theme that I may never escape from.  It's hard not to feel like all this time, energy, money, and tears were wasted.  It's shameful that I was the only one who believed I was suited for my dream.  With bitter gratitude, I know that I am being protected from the future that I could never anticipate.  This I know, that I can trust that there's more to the story.

So, I'm still at the threshold and haven't taken my shoes off yet, but it's warm in here.  Voices I don't recognize yet are calling me in.  Soft music is playing around the corner, and there are big windows that let in the light and the breeze.  It's now that I realize deep down what my feeble prayers have been asking - for some place to finally be like home.  For a place where I can be myself, and be at peace.  To one live fully, without having to sacrifice other precious parts of myself or parts of my forever.  For somewhere I can grow roots, where there's room for someone else to grow with and alongside me.  That's all I want.