When our daughter was born, she had flaming red hair, a fierce reddened brow, and a fiery attitude. She’s always known exactly what she wants. As she has grown, she’s developed the ability to set reaching goals, steps to achieve those goals, and then success after success reaching them. She always seems to have a plan to get her where she wants to be, and a lip gloss in her purse just in case you need some. She graduated from high school in 2020, and then from college in 2024 with a degree in Elementary Education from the University of Colorado Denver. In January of 2025 she applied to the JET Program and was accepted. This journal, written by her mother who has been left behind, hopes to log her adventures as she tackles the world in her first foray into adulthood. She is moving from her hometown in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado, USA to Ishikawa Japan for a year to teach English to schoolchildren. My husband and I have two children, and she is our first to leave the nest.