Tonight, I sat drinking with my Twitter buddies (oh em gee, I’m so simultaneously lame & awesome) & flipping through old pictures.  & suddenly, I was seized with the most poignant, emotional grip around my heart.

This girl, right here:

Did she know who she would become?  Did she know what an amazing life she would create & the impact on the world she would have?

& in an odd way, it breaks my heart to admit that no, she did not.

She did not realize that with every IM conversation, the boy she sat next to in a hated feminist rhetoric class fell more deeply in love with her.  She did not imagine that in 7 years, staying up until 2am would host a different type of bottle.  She didn’t understand a world outside of being her sorority’s president, Vera Bradley bags, or Economics 305.  & she did not know that the best years of her life were yet to be lived & that almost a decade later, she will wish to whisper to the girl this photo, “Take care of yourself, Blair.  Guard your heart & learn to be wise.  For you have a destiny greater than one you ever imagined.”

& I wonder if I’ll wish to whisper the same thing to this young woman, seven years from now: