Last night my three year old girl – the light that has lit my world since the day she was born – kissed me good night for the last time. It was sad and beautiful.

This morning I hugged my four year old for the first time, and it felt fantastic. It seems like only yesterday I held my breath as I held her in my arms, so awestruck was I at her very existence. Yet in other ways, four years seems like a lifetime, my lifetime before her forgotten, like a murky dream I can’t quite remember.

Only four years of my forty, yet it feels like the other way round. Like all I learnt before would fit into four years, and all I have learnt since into 36. I’ve grown up as much as her, and at times it felt her rising star has shone more brightly in direct relation to my dulling down.

And yet… there are more times her light has shone a beam on me, highlighting a side of me I like better – a kinder, wiser, loving, caring me.

So tonight I will kiss my four year old goodnight for the first time, and see a better me reflected back in the glint in her eyes. We made each other it seems…. So happy birthday to me too….the better me.