Echoes.

I know that sometimes from the outside it looks as though I can’t handle my life.
I can.
Part of parenthood with Abbey has been learning – part of it has been me growing up myself.
She’s been a little unlucky in that she was the experiment along the way -without any of us realizing it. But I’ve been a darned good mom for the most part.
I just wish sometimes that I hadn’t passed so much of ME along to her.
In hindsight I don’t see how I could have avoided it – I was just a kid at the time. Just a kid for so much of it.
And I spoiled her to make up for inattention from her father – which doesn’t actually help fix that problem or hurt, but makes teaching more complicated as the years pass.

I’m at the point with my daughter that all parents of girls go through – where we don’t understand, where we aren’t smart enough, where we’re all wrong, where life is full of drama and major ups and downs on the inside – no matter that the problems may seem small from the outside.
And as I’ve always said – if the problem is something that truly bothers you that much, well, it’s a big deal. No matter what I think of how I’d react in a similar situation.

I hope she gets that later.
That ability to put herself in someone else’s shoes.
Right now she’s 12 – her shoes are the only shoes that exist and/or matter. And that’s fine and normal.
She’s a good kid, a loving kid.
A kid that has no idea how to tell any of us what she really wants in this incredibly difficult situation – how can she hurt any of us?

So dealing with the aftermath of that is my full time job at the moment.
And sometimes it means we run late in the morning – out of temper or body-shaking sobs.
And sometimes it means that I’m fighting the ‘I don’t feel good’ monster… and like any white knight(ess) I don’t always win the battle.
But I keep in touch with the school, fill in her teachers and counselors, make sure she has the outlets she needs, and will never give up on doing any of that, no matter how frustrating it can be sometimes when you can’t just push the easy button and fix someone so they don’t hurt or worry anymore.

I want to scream that I know it looks like I’m not handling it, but I’m not a screamer… and I am handling it.
Not perfectly. Not badly.
Just day to day.
A teenager is almost unrecognizable as your child sometimes. You avoid the quicksand of the emotional battle that always rages just under the surface most of the time.
But sometimes, not so much.

And I hurt for her.
I remember the pain of that age.
And can’t imagine what it’s like combined with her world right now.
And I get angry with her.
Being smart as she is, her ability to play us all is overwhelmingly effective.

Ah, the age where you pick and choose your truths.
The aiming for sympathy and attention.
How can you know what to believe?

These questions haunt me a bit.
I don’t know if they do her father and stepmother, but they do me.
A decision to change all of our lives could be decided based upon lies in the temper of the moment.

Kids are simply the most wonderful thing and most painful thing that any parent will experience.
The love is unlike any other – full and warm and fulfilling. But they can break your heart.
I suppose anyone that you truly love – TRULY love – has that power.

I hope she uses it for good.
Carries this backbone that I have and that she hopefully inherited and makes a place for her in the world that I never carved into.
With college degrees and wise decisions.
And I hope to hell that what the three of us are doing now doesn’t stand in her way.