My UFO (unbelievably fabulous observations)

[hoosiermama]

I kinda think that if you haven't learned by 30, it's unlikely to come off as natural!!

[kat727]

I don't know about that. I would have never considered myself a flirt but since being divorced at 44, I amazed at how much fun it is. Practice.

[hoosiermama]

that will require some conscious effort. too many years of ministry making sure I DIDN'T come across as flirtatious!!

[v1olin]

Practice makes perfect! Too many years of shyness for me makes it quite a challenge!

[hoosiermama]

same here, I'm afraid.

[NNP1965]

me too

[hoosiermama]

Painful moments in parenting...I believe I am now officially the mother of an adolescent. D14 came home from 5 days at Frank's, after her audition, with some fun stories about all they had done, and a request to spend more extended periods with her dad...and gf and her "new grandparents" (gf's parents, apparently very nice, very wealthy, very generous folks). We spent the evening getting things prepared for the Chicago trip, which begins early tomorrow morning, making some dinner, making banana bread, and trying to set up our new DVD player (the old one quit awhile back). Predictably, I couldn't get the thing working correctly; too many connections and plugs and cords and everything else (TV, cable box, CD player) is fine but can't get the discs to play on the TV. I finally gave up around 11 pm, went into the kitchen and accidentally knocked over a glass, and all hell broke loose. She started screaming at me; this has never happened before. Nothing works at our house, I don't have any friends I can call to come help us, we can't ever do anything because we don't have enough money, I need to stop being crazy (!?) and then--just hysterical crying but wouldn't tell me why. I ended up just going to bed and leaving her to cry it out while I did the same. This evening I'll come home, make dinner, take her to Bible Study, pack her up, and then send her off to Chicago in the morning. Not a lot of time there to try to iron this out, whatever it is.

I know this is probably just adolescent angst and probably overdue...but I feel like I'm losing her. I don't blame her for being frustrated about these things; I'm equally frustrated about the same things, about struggling for so long and having to say "no" too often. Things were supposed to be getting easier financially, but it's slow because I have to catch up in many areas...and things continue to break down, it's just the nature of home ownership. No doubt life with Dad looks pretty attractive right now, no doubt I look like the one with the chaotic life to her. I hate trying to "do it all" and coparent with someone with less maturity than our teenage daughter...but who has friends and support and family and...a life. Two years later I'm trying to put it all together and I'm not sure I'm doing such a great job of it. I keep thinking of all the opportunities she could have if we were still an intact family and I feel like such a failure.

[Gardener]

hm,
I'm sorry you had such a bad night and are having a difficult time of things in general right now.

You are definitely an official mother of a full-blown adolescent now!
Fourteen. My StepD - my first daughter - was fourteen when I married her mom. Yikes! Gardener had stepped into a scary teenaged-girl-world!

She is conflicted, in pain and very confused.

And your night last night is so full of metaphors that one could stretch them forever:

She goes to a place where everything seems - to her, right now - perfect, intact, working, family-like, and full of abundance.

Comes home to things that don't work ("DVD"), things are not affordable right now, nothing seems intact - including family - and she feels the tension, the incongruity of the two situations.

Then something shattered, which is how she probably feels about everything right now.

All Hell understandably broke loose. All Hell has broken loose in her life and in her adolescent black-or-white thinking nothing is right in her life.

Teenage angst. Very real. Very scary. Very final. (remember? )

I don't know exactly how hysterical she was, but next time perhaps try hugging her. Tightly. Lovingly. Restrain and comfort her.
Cry with her, not separately. And don't let go until she - and you - calm down.

Tough time and stress all around. And for her, at a very tough age.

Give yourself a good day today.

See you on the .alt.

[hoosiermama]

gardener...thank you.

can't get to the .alt from work....

so you think in metaphors too, eh? lol. altho I didn't see it at the time, yeah--you're absolutely right.

Odd...I usually would have held her. But I think I felt so broken myself that I was afraid I'd end up leaning on her and...I was angry, too. But you're right.

thank you.

[Gardener]

I understand.