"Let Em' Soar", I Say!

So, again, Darren scored some TFC (Toronto Football Club...aka soccer) tickets and again, I was the last person he thought of taking.  Trust me, I am still recovering (from last time last month!)...but instead he did have a good idea.  Instead of him taking Kamrin (again!), how about he take Kamrin and her best friend, Alexa, down to the stadium and he'll just get himself some cheap nosebleed seat and let them have at it on their own.  They LOVED the idea.  So Alexa spent the night last night and and all morning they were so pumped about this new found independence we were going to bestow them with.  I am a wee bit over-protective...ok, sometimes a little psycho...but it's for my kid - I go a bit nuts for them.  But as Kamrin gets older and tries to spread her wings, I again, have to let it go.  When I thought about them going downtown on their "own" I was reminded of something I did when I was a kid.  Expo 86 was HUGE...or at least in my little world, it was amazing.  I still remember some things clear as day.  I remember being in grade 5 and my friend Kirsten Penner being so much older and wiser (by a year) and an outing we took on our own.  We decided we were going to go to the bus stop uptown White Rock, get on a bus, do the whole bus exchange thing and try and be the first in line for a day at the Expo.  We were so excited - I 

remember thinking I was so cool and grown up.  I was in 5th grade and here I was going downtown Vancouver with my friend on the bus and we had boundless energy and opportunities.  I remember being asked a few questions by a reporter who was talking to people and thinking I was going to be famous for being on the news.  I remember not being the first in the gate...we shoved ahead to be 3rd-ish in line.   I remember some boys heckling us and thinking how cool that was.  (there better not be any boys bothering Kamrin today!!!!  crap...didn't think about that one).  We bought our own food, did our own thing and got our own bus ride home.  I was elated and overwhelmingly satisfied.  I still, to this day, do not understand what my parents were thinking allowing us to do that. But in the end, I am so glad they did.  Kirsten left us all too early and I am so glad I have this awesome memory of us growing up.  Fast forward a few years and I am living in Bangkok.  14 and on the bus with my sister all the time.  The buses there were crazy.  No words to describe it - just make sure you never  touch a monk is all I am gonna say.  When Kara left to go to University, I had to travel the streets of Bangkok on my own and darnit, I was good at it.  I had my first "boyfriend" in Bangkok, and in order to go see him I had to bus to the nicer area of town and I would not get home some times till 2 am!!!  Again, were my parents nuts????  I think a little...but again, they trusted me and I savoured my "freedom".  I learned not to take taxi rides late at night as most cabbies are perverts after midnight...after a scare I figured the bus system much safer!  So, Kamrin will be 12 years old next month and is ready to soar.  She is planning on flying to Moose Jaw and Vancouver on her own this year.  We've traveled enough I know she'll figure it out.  And I am so proud of her. Proud of her maturity and panache.  But it's not just Kamrin that is evolving...I am learning to grow up with her too...unfortunately my growing up means losing my kids to their new freedoms, getting wrinkles and fighting gray hair and not being able to eat chocolate the way I used to without any consequence!