I had the pleasure of having my youngest daughter with me for the entire school vacation week. We had a nice week. Since the separation, I haven’t spent a significant block of time with any one of my children so this was much needed and appreciated. Before the move, my youngest and I had a standing date every Saturday night with the sofa, Netflix, and a pizza. Of all of the things I miss from my previous life, one on one time with the offspring is the toughest one.
She and I had a nice week. There was no pressure to fill the week with activities, this house is her go-to spot for relaxation and to catch up on sleep. We spent a few nights catching up on some shows but it wasn’tas relaxing as before. In the last year, one thing has been added to her repertoire that I can’t compete with…boys. And all of the accompanying drama. The endless stream of texts, “snapchats” and FB messages made it impossible to just chill and watch our shows like we used to. I can’t compete.
Despite having all of the features treasured by the superficial, hormonal teenager, my daughter has always kept herself grounded and humble. She tells me that she has low self-esteem but the astronomical amount of “selfies” she takes indicates to the contrary. At some point in the last year, she has apparently come around to the possibility that she is attractive and now interacts pretty freely with the boys. To her credit, she is not drawing attention to herself, but she is still getting it. And some notoriety, if I am to believe the story that she rejected the captain of the football team last week, causing her stock to rise further. The only thing I know for certain is that, when it comes to the male gender, she is an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, deep fried in a puzzle. In other words a hot mess.
I raised my kids to talk to me so naturally, I heard all about the different hormonal messes, I mean boys, vying for her attention. While it is mostly a blur, here is what I have so far. She likes the bad boys but won’t date one. She likes nice guys but they’re not “hot” like the bad boys. She has rules about dating friends of guys she likes or has liked in the past. Apparently, one boy, who is friends with a former crush, has started drinking and smoking weed because she won’t date him. She feels bad that she doesn’t like this guy, she wishes that another guy liked her more. It goes on and on and on.
I wanted to help, but there wasn’t much I could do but listen to her. She showed me some of the posts, the boys seemed to be behaving themselves. She knows that if I see a Dick Pic someone is going to die but there was none of that. The temptation arose to tell her to “cool the drama” but I knew that I, as an adult shouldn’t do that. I have been there, suffered teen angst and had my heart broken. I needed to limit my participation to giving the best advice that I could. At the end of the day, I have tremendous faith in her decision making and her values. She does have a flair for the dramatic but it’s more a matter of her making up her mind as to what she wants than an actual crisis. Still, it’s tough not to administer the antidote when you know you have it.
Her dramatic phase will pass, eventually. After all, it’s for teenagers right? I’d like to think so. Then I saw an FB post from a 41-year-old female friend that said
“Grrrrrr so aggravated right now!”
Ah yes, the generic plea for attention while offering no context post. Soon to be followed by a string of replies imploring “what’s wrong honey?”, “are you OK?”, “Oh, you poor thing”. Drama, maybe it’s not just for teenagers after all…
#JusJoJan Daily Prompt – January 1st, 2018
Superman found his phone booth 