She will always be my little girl.

Fathers around the world have been claiming since the beginning of time, but I never really understood it until I became a father myself. Even as I watch her blossom into womanhood, I can’t help but still see her as a child, innocent and pure like an angel.

In a way, I suppose I was spoiled. For most fathers, their little girls grow up far too quickly, going from tea parties with their stuffed animals to their first boy/girl dance in the blink of an eye. For me, however, my little girl stayed a little girl for over nine hundred years, and even then, the time seemed to pass by too quickly.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’m not happy that Small Lady’s growth has finally restarted after so many years of remaining stagnant. I want her to eventually grow up, fall in love, get married, and make me a grandpa. It’s just so hard to let her go, although no matter how hard I try to hold onto her, I already feel her slipping away from me.

No more is she the little girl whose idea of the perfect day was spending it with her father. Now she is embarrassed to even be seen with me in public, preferring to hang out with her friends instead.

No longer does she crawl in my lap at night, asking me to tell her stories of the legendary Sailor Moon; she’s living those tales for herself as she trains with her own group of guardian senshi to become as strong a soldier as her mother.

Gone are the days when I was the most important man in her life. I know she will always love me, but another man has taken the number one spot in her heart, a man I can’t help but to resent a little even as I see how happy he makes my daughter.

Why can’t she stay mine forever? Maybe I’m being selfish, but she was mine first. I was the one who helped create her. I was the first man she loved, the man she said she wanted to marry when she was too innocent to understand what she was saying.

I’m not ready to give her to another. Not yet.

Despite that, when he comes to me to ask for her hand, I look into my daughter’s eyes and realize I can’t keep her. In my eyes, she may still be my little girl, but somewhere along the way, she also became her own woman. It pains my heart, but a part of me is also glad, for it is every parent’s dream to see their child become their own person.

So, like a mother bird, it is time for me to let my baby bird leave the nest, to fly toward a new life with the man she loves.

Goodbye, baby bird. I love you.

DISCLAIMER: "Sailor Moon" is the property of Takeuchi Naoko.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Any comments or criticisms can be sent to me at ElysionDream@aol.com. This was written for the sm_monthly community at Livejournal, Theme: Daddy's Girl.