A 17-year-old's first vote

"Vote!" said the sticky note left on the inside of my front door this morning.

It was my 17-year-old daughter's reminder to herself, as if she'd forget.

Jessa has been waiting for months to take part in her first election, and neither rain nor snow nor having to get up early was going to stand in her way.

There are certain moments in a parent's life when the past rewinds in front of your face. I could swear it was only last year when Jessa was standing beside me, hip-high, at the voting booth as I explained the process, or helping me set up a Kids Voting booth at our precinct so she and her second-grade friends could "vote."

And then today she was off to the polls before I was, voting for a candidate about whom she feels passionate and able to articulate her reasons as well as anyone I know.

"Your daughter was already here," the poll workers told me when I signed in at my precinct. We exchanged a smile. That, after all these years, was the point.