Twelve years ago, my daughter—just a kindergartener at the time—asked me a question I didn’t realize would stay with me for this long.
“Will you take me to Paris someday?”
I said yes… but with a condition. Keep your grades up all the way through school. Graduate high school. Then we’ll go. At the time, it felt like one of those promises that lived far off in the distance. I was a young mom—still figuring out how to build a life, let alone plan something like a trip to Paris.
If I’m honest, I thought somewhere along the way she might forget… or simply outgrow the dream.
She didn’t. She held onto it for twelve years. And more than that—she held up her end of the deal. What I didn’t understand back then was that I wasn’t just raising her—I was growing up right alongside her.
We were learning in real time. How to show up. How to keep going. How to build something steady, even when life didn’t feel steady. And not every year was easy. There was a stretch in middle school where things felt harder—for both of us. She was trying to figure out who she was, pushing boundaries, feeling everything deeply in that way teenagers do. And I was trying to figure out how to be the kind of mom she needed—holding the line when I had to, but also holding space for the parts of her that were still becoming. It wasn’t perfect. There were moments I questioned myself. Moments I wondered if I was getting it right. But we moved through it.
Looking at her now, I can see how much that time shaped her—not just academically, but emotionally. The way she carries herself. The way she thinks. The way she understands the world and her place in it. I’m so proud of her for that. On May 15th, she graduates. Now it’s my turn to hold up my end of the bargain.
On May 30th, we leave for Paris—not just for the trip itself, but for everything it represents. We’ll wander through the Louvre Museum, stand beneath the Eiffel Tower, get lost in Montmartre, and spend a day at the Palace of Versailles- but the truth is, this trip isn’t really about Paris. It’s about a promise made when life felt uncertain.
It’s about twelve years of showing up—for her, and learning how to show up for myself. It’s about growing up together, even when that meant growing through hard seasons. It’s about a girl who never let go of something she believed in. I’m proud of her for getting here and if I’m honest—I’m proud of me, too. The long way through isn’t always about where you go. Sometimes it’s about who you become along the way—and the moment you finally realize you did it.
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