Walking and Talking

Yesterday was a beautiful day in northern Colorado. The sun was out (sorry, aging skin, for forgetting the SPF 30) and the wind was calm. My back was in a nasty spasm (there's nothing like carrying around a super sick and super tired and oh yeah, far heavier than he looks 9 year old boy to anger an already testy back. Did I mention the marimba hauling, too? Woe, oh woe!) so when my friend called to ask if I wanted to go for a walk, my first impulse was to say no, take a Motrin (or 7) and crawl back into bed. Luckily, before any of those words made it past my brain, my mouth had the sense to say "Sure. When?"

So, we took a short walk, played with her adorable dogs, and talked about parenting teenage girls. Unlike some other conversations we've had that deteriorate into whining sessions about why our girls can't be more X or less Y and how frustrating the social scene is for a teenage girl, we talked about what we, as parents, have to do better in order to help our girls (and ourselves) thrive during such a trial-filled time of life. I gave myself a pat on the back for admitting to myself a couple of summers ago that, although C is perfectly fine with having a limited social circle (prefers it, actually), I worried about her lack of a "group of friends" and often pushed her to be more social. Since I've (mostly) stopped that, she and I are both happier. My friend reminded me that really, how good could it be for teenage girls to hang out with (*gasp*) other teenage girls anyway??

We talked about what we could do better, what we need to just accept/ignore, and how learning to love every little bit of our (admittedly, sometimes, momentarily, hard-to-like daughters) needs to be job one. I'm sure all of this seems completely intuitive for those of you who don't have teenage daughters (of a particularly complicated breed... is there any other kind?) but trust me, if and when you find yourself in my (our) shoes, you will struggle with the same questions.

I wish there was a way to communicate with young people who live so completely in the land of the "right here right now" that almost all mistakes made at this age will someday be forgotten and will certainly be forgiven, and that every single moment spent loving onesself and nurturing positive relationships/interests/talents will pay enormous dividends.

So, I woke up this morning with a renewed sense of purpose as a parent of a (well, in 52 days) teenage girl. I want to find every possible way to make her feel loved and that may require me to accept that her needs may be dramatically different from mine. It's like a fun little (huge) puzzle and luckily, I have 7 more years (or you know... a lifetime) to try to work it out.