I spent the day sorting the mail, doing laundry, answering emails, paying bills and putting things back in order.

But part of me is still somewhere on a trail in the Canadian Rockies with my daughters.

They’re 26 and 28 now. Full-fledged adults. Building careers, making decisions, working toward goals, creating lives that are entirely their own.

There’s something about hiking that gives your mind room to wander. Maybe it’s the fresh air. Maybe it’s the miles with nowhere else to be. But as we walked, I kept thinking about the girls beside me and all the earlier versions of them I could still see.

The two-year-old. The six-year-old. The twelve-year-old. The fifteen-year-old.

They’re still in there.

The traits I noticed when they were little didn’t disappear. They evolved. What once looked like stubbornness has become tenacity. What looked like caution has become discernment: the ability to take things in before deciding what comes next.

The things that made them them at two are still there at 26 and 28, just shaped by experience, confidence and a life that belongs to them now.

Maybe that’s true for all of us.

We spend so much time thinking we’re supposed to become someone entirely new as we get older. But maybe some of the best parts of who we are have been there all along.

We just need time to grow into ourselves.

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That's the whole ask.

There's something in it for you too.

Details below.

My answer:

I only need to prove anything to me.

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