Today I went to get my Oregon driver's license and you and your dad came with me. I'm officially an Oregonian now, just like you! The whole process was a bit strange. The DMV office was in North Portland in a strip mall next to a Home Depot or Lowe's, I can't remember which. I kept hearing home improvement announcements and ads over the loudspeaker outside of the store. There were several homeless people outside. I was a little worried about leaving y'all in the car because I didn't know how long I would be inside, but I grabbed my documents and headed out to wait in line. I was feeling kind of giddy because it's been a while since I've had a new driver's license picture. The last one I took was when I changed my license when I changed my last name in 2016. That picture was awful. I looked like trailer trash because no one told me that the hairstyle I had chosen and continued to wear around was not flattering on me at all. But the picture before that was from when I was either 16 or 18. I think it was 18. In that picture I have on a blue Where The Wild Things Are shirt and bright blonde hair. I look younger, but not so much different than I do now, besides some more fat around my face. I've been feeling better about myself overall since you've been born. There are definitely moments where I feel deflated and like I'll never look "perfect", but I guess I'm feeling more and more like I really don't look bad, sometimes I even look good, and that maybe there are more important things than looks anyway. Like being a good mom, which takes a lot of self-awareness and the wherewithal to not just berate yourself all the time in front of your child. Because children listen. I did. And now I have this inner voice that tells me I'm not good enough, not thin enough, not pretty enough, not... enough all of the time. But I've found it's getting a little harder to hear. Not quieter. Just harder to hear because I'm busy hearing other things. Like you crying and screaming and the call to be patient and kind and loving and, yes, that means to myself too. So even though it's been quieter, there was still that "it's school picture day I have to look my best" feeling when it comes to driver's license pictures. I had hardly fixed my hair, just let it dry naturally which I've been doing a lot lately. But I liked it. I had on one of your dad's shirts and no makeup. Just me. But I already felt so much more hopeful about this new chapter than I did when I got my last license in 2016. No more trailer trash. Only beautiful, natural-looking mom Jessie. I waited patiently while the DMV woman put all of my information into the computer, watched her get into an argument with her superior, watched a man next to me get upset about the cost of registering his new used car, and listened as a crowd of people lined up after I had already started the process - thinking how lucky I was to come during their downtime. A homeless man yelled outside and one of the employees said, "Welcome to North Portland..." to the crowd of people waiting. It was an event. For sure. But the thing I noticed the most was my own reflection in the plexiglass separator between me and the employee helping me. As I stood there nervous and anticipating what my new license would look like, I stared at the woman/girl in front of me for a while. It was amazing to me that so much time had passed between now and my Where the Wild Things Are ID. So much life had passed. I went to college, I turned 21, I got married, I changed my last name and moved out of my parent's home for real for the first time, I moved to Portland, and I had you. So much had passed and yet as I looked at that reflection, I didn't feel like time had been unkind to me. I couldn't tell that all of that life had happened in between the picture of me I had in my mind and the picture I saw in that separator. They are and were the same woman/girl. I'm not sure I'm ever going to stop being that girl. I'm not sure I'm ever going to stop feeling like it was "just yesterday" that something happened. Time just passes so differently now. And I feel so different since you got here. Like I'm her and me, all at the same time. It's weird. And exciting. And I'm anticipating it will only get realer as more time and life passes. That I'll look even older, even fatter (I mean I hope not, but let's just be a little realistic), even wearier... But I'll still be that girl. The one in the blue shirt, eager and so full of life and young/innocent anticipation for what would become of my life. All of the things I thought I would be when I took that photo... I'm not any of them. But I'm your mom now. And even though it's not what I thought up at 18, it's not that far off from what I wanted. Because I'm never far off from that dreamer I was and always will be. And someday, you'll get your first driver's license and then your second and third and the one where your name changes (maybe, who knows), and the one where your address changes, and the one where you're a mom, and the one where you're an old woman... And... you'll still feel like it was "just yesterday" when you were that young innocent anticipating girl standing in the DMV listening to the things you only hear at the DMV, thinking about all of the things you'd be, all of the things you'd accomplish as the driving, adulting, naive girl you were in that moment. And even if you're not any of those things, you'll still be that girl. And life and time will have passed. And you'll find comfort in how normal and uneventful, but also wonderful it all turned out to be.