A Letter to My Unicorn

 My Dearest Alicia, 

It is a beautiful summer morning, and it is the first day of your ballet intensive. You just returned home this past weekend from your weeklong High Adventure Camp near the Oregon and California border. To be honest, I started this letter in February, opened it back up in April, and then again in May...and now we are here: July! I think that perfectly sums up just how busy this season of life is. In the last month, we had your eighth-grade promotion, rolled into a full weekend of ballet recitals, and then we left for two weeks in the United Kingdom. Life is exhilarating, delightful, and very, very full. 

At fourteen years old, you are on the precipice of a new adventure and have fully embraced teenhood. You love to sleep late, constantly have a single earbud in, are obsessed with oversized hoodies, and are the chattiest at 11:30pm. Your room is covered in crumpled-up wrappers. You love a fully caffeinated sweet coffee drink. In this past year, you have taught yourself to knit and crochet, creating scarves, stuffies, and hacky sacks that litter our house. However, you still love the color pink, video games, ballet, history, orange juice, and avocados. Somethings never change. 

Lately, one of our favorite household conversations has been picture books and movies we watched together during the preschool years and toddler years. Books and stories have always been a central part of our household. You, my sweet girl, loved to read Donald Cries "Wolf" and The Color Monster. We read these over and over and over again. You were obsessed with Minnie Mouse and had long passages of Ramona the Pest memorized. There was a long stretch of time when you only wore your Rainbow Brite costume. While you loved Rainbow Brite, her color belt and star sprinkles, Starlight, her rainbow-maned unicorn, was your favorite. Unicorns have always captivated you, and it's easy to understand why. They symbolize bravery, strength, and beauty with a fierce magical determination to stand out from the crowd. 

I see these same "unicorn qualities" in you day in and day out. Whether it be expressing yourself through your brises and pirouettes in ballet class, wild swimming in the English countryside, or confidently stepping onto a bus for a week-long camping trip under the stars. This past spring, you demonstrated these qualities again when you auditioned to speak at your eighth-grade promotion ceremony. You wrote a thoughtful speech, practiced it repeatedly in our living room, and stood on stage to encourage your classmates to foster their curiosity in high school. It takes a unique kind of bravery to share your voice like that.  

As you step into high school this fall, I want you to hold on to those unicorn qualities. Embrace your uniqueness. Soak up the beauty in life. Harness your strengths. Stay curious. Stand tall. You are so wonderfully rare and magical, my love, and I am so proud of the person you are becoming. 

I love you more than all the stars in the sky and all the water in the ocean. 

Love, 

Mom