We went to the Chattanooga Aquarium over the weekend and had a great time.

It was my daughter’s 21st birthday trip.

She chose a trip that was “little kid friendly”.

Pretty darn sweet.

Here’s a picture of Zoe in the jellyfish part of the aquarium.

That was my favorite part of the aquarium….those jellyfish.

They were so beautiful, making their way gently through the water, backlit in a peaceful and dark room.

When we left the aquarium, there was a young woman wishing everybody a nice day at the exit, and when she asked us if we’d had a nice time, I mentioned how much I’d enjoyed seeing the jellyfish.

“That’s my favorite part, too.” she said. “Did you know that they can’t move on their own? Every movement is just them responding to the currents of the water! They don’t actually swim.”

I told her that I didn’t know that….but, secretly, even as I was talking to her,  I was anxious to “google” it when I got home.

Man, those jellyfish can too move on their own.

I’ve seen it in a dark aquarium room….hundreds of them, swimming around.

Wait….here’s an article that says they can’t swim (because they don’t have flippers or fins), but that they can move around by propelling water out of their bodies.

Most of the time, they just get carried around by the wind (when they’re on the surface of the water) or the ocean currents, though.

Freaking internet. Too many facts.

The article was from a website called “jellyfish facts”.

Who knew that there’d be a website called “jellyfish facts”? I didn’t see that one coming.

Zoe turned 21 on this trip.

She’s no jellyfish….but she’s beautiful.

She doesn’t move around by shooting water out of her body….and she doesn’t have flippers or fins, either, but she can still swim if she wants to.

Here’s what I was thinking when I was hoping to completely disprove that jellyfish don’t move on their own, and, you have to remember that most of this is happening before 6 in the morning, and before the caffeine has really kicked in.

What I was thinking was that “those jellyfish do too move on their own!!”

How’s that for eloquence?

Nah….what I was thinking was this: When you have a child and the child grows up, maybe just as some kind of ego trip or something close to it, you think that everything the child does springs from your circle of influence.

“They don’t swim” you think.

Maybe it’s something you heard someone else say….somewhere…sometime.

They’re set up by your efforts, and carried by your current.

What they do is only because of who you are.

(Of course, that’s hypothetical and pre-caffeine rush, so it doesn’t fully apply to me or my thought processes, but you get the idea.)

Anyway….that theory that a child is only a projection of myself and only moving in some current I provide is a bunch of BS.

My child swims.

My child moves on her own….whether she’s swimming with or against “my current”.

Luckily, for me, Zoe moves with the current.

She’s good at “flow”.

The world is a big place, and my “little girl” is moving through it. She’s a part of our family forever…but she “swims” on her own….possibly even independent of me or my influence.

She doesn’t need my “current” to make her way through the world.

That’s something that I didn’t have to “google” to figure out.

I hope that she had a good birthday.