She’s done it again. She’s taken lemons and made the sweetest, most delicious lemonade. The Celtic warrior princess has prevailed. Today marks her graduation from hair design school despite a year of medical and bureaucratic challenges that would have easily deterred a lesser soul. And as her future stretches tantalizingly before her (because part of being a Celtic warrior princess is fearlessly exploring the array of options limited only by your wild imagination), I am reveling in the past triumphs of this amazing young woman who is my muse, my teacher and my heart.
It was obvious early on that we weren’t dealing with your average kid. All who were drawn in to her enormous blue eyes were stunned by her preverbal hyperawareness and drive to connect. Language and the independence of toddlerhood had me researching the existence of military convents. And then she settled in to being quietly fabulous; an introverted overachiever with absolutely no idea of her magnificence.
Life smiled on her. Things came so easily: academic superstardom, artistic precocity, athletic prowess. Nothing she tried was less than a resounding success. “I can’t wait to see what she’s going to be”, one of our dearest friends regularly enthused. And the princess, despite her cluelessness as to her extraordinariness, was excited by the possibilities. At 12, she was plotting her path toward Harvard.
At 13, she was right on track, a shoo-in for an elite private high school, when things changed overnight. The post-viral onset of a debilitating chronic illness steadily robbed her of every academic and extracurricular success. The subsequent implosion of our family and our eventual relocation further rocked her world. Anxiety and depression took up residence. Too ill to keep up even at the public high school, by 15 she was at a crossroads: give up or find another way.
In a fairy tale, she might have immediately found the alternate path and lived happily ever after. Instead, the Celtic warrior princess slogged through two years of painstaking efforts to redefine success and recreate a life worth living. Many steps forward were followed by at least one step back. Today, as her peers enter their senior year of high school, she has a GED with college credits and a profession. More importantly, she has an unusually strong sense of herself, gratitude for the opportunities for personal growth her unorthodox life has afforded her, and a resilience almost beyond imagining. Not to mention a killer sense of humor that elevates us through it all.
Tonight we celebrate. And tomorrow? The possibilities are boundless. Among those contenders currently on the table: college, entrepreneurship and independent living. Stay tuned. I, personally, can’t wait to see what happens next.
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