somehow it happens

Ok, here's my position. If my daughter needs to be here for another year, let's make the most of it. What does she need from me, what can I help her with, and how can we enjoy this time together?

The stronger I hold this place, the more she steps up to it. The more sweetness I see and the more fun we have.

Don't know if it was just the timing of mh being away last weekend, but she really stepped up and included me in things. It was my birthday, and she took me out to dinner in this sweet, new-grown-up kind of way.

And when I told her her boyfriend could sleep over the other night, she listened to my concerns and responded in a respectful way.

So we will find our way. She is growing up, and that can actually lead to good things, however it happens!

dig deeper

You know, when my daughter was a baby I had the big "oh shit" moment, when I realized that I was going to have to stand up for her and hold a safe space in her world until she could hold that for herself. It took me way outside my comfort zone, and the need only got bigger as she got bigger.

No one ever tells you that this need will never end.

Not even when they turn 18 and graduate high school and work in the big world and have boyfriends they sleep with. Because at some point, the space she insists is "ok" for herself will be in direct conflict with the space that I hold for myself. The collision point is nasty.

Way back last fall, with her psycho-artist boyfriend away at school in NYC, my daughter got involved with a local guy and played both of them, til Mr. NYC found out. It was ugly. Unstable to begin with, this pushed him right over the edge, with very unfortunated consequences all around, ending with vandalism in our neighborhood and a call to the police.

Now, months later, he's back home from school for the summer, she's groveling for his attention, and "things are good now." So when can we drop this silly rule that he can't come in the house?

Ummmm, not now. I just don't think that anyone I"ve had to call the cops on should be welcome with open arms in the sacred space of my home.

"Well, you can just ignore him!" What, while the two of you are upstairs locked in your room? I don't think so.

It all puts me in that old place of "dig deeper" to name the proper edges in a bigger context. I can feel it inside me, a deep grounded authentic space expanding, no emotional charge to it, just the Big Truth.

Ain't no free lunch anywhere, and as she learns her very painful lesson that a) screwing around in high school will cost you your GPA, b) no real school outside of FL wants you with those grades and c) now you are STUCK in FL for another year until you WORK yourself up and out of community college.

Which means: living at home. Which means: new rules. Which means, since you have violated our agreement of successfully navigating yourself out of high school and away to college, I need to see proportionally more respect for the ease of your lifestyle by seeing some respect for ME.

I've worked so damned hard to keep this house while I created a business out of NOTHING, and now I should let your psychotic boyfriend who threatened you and vandalized us just waltz into this space?

I don't think so. And my job right now is to define this bigger context and the rules that come with it.

Child's Play

It's the end of an era, manifesting in actions large and small. My daughter is cleaning out some things - tonight it was boxes of her childhood books. We looked through them together. Oh, for those simpler times, for the cozy space we created together, safe in the words and pictures. We sort out different piles: books that will never leave her side; books I will keep for my kiddie clients entertainment; girl books for my favorite 4-yr-old and boy books for the two brothers. And another box, of her pre-teen and teenage "dark" books - they are going straight to the book exchange shop. So from this far-away place of secure, innocent, protected childhood, she packs the box into the trunk of her boyfriend's car, and they drive away into the night - where she will spend yet another night at his house. They're all toddlers, really, cling tight and then run to adventure.

sea change

It's all official now - no going away to school next year for my daughter. Holding space for her at home. I don't know if I have the edges for this. And in the very same day, the last check from her father, the last piece.... and the bank made it out to HIM not me. So now we've got to do some kind of signing/turnaround thing. We all sink into this vortex together. How to spring forward with the next phase of my life if I'm not done with this one? Where is the clarity? When am I done? When can I go?