It always seems that having a confrontation with people creates within me an increased desire to communicate my feelings, views, and opinions thoroughly; I feel a need to explore them, to hash it all out, to decide once and for all if I was indeed justified or if I was mistaken and need to repent. I have this need to communicate at all times, but right now, after a long confrontation with my daughter last night, that need has been magnified.
A blog is a wonderful thing for anyone who has a need to communicate. In the olden days, it was called journaling, now it's called blogging, but the end result is the same: I am putting my thoughts down in written format, which forces me to acknowlege my feelings for what they are. Right or wrong, they are there for me and everyone else to see and know, and this helps me to examine myself, as we are told to do in Scripture. I love it. For some reason that I can't quite define, writing my thoughts out seems to satisfy a need that I carry deep within me. This is the mode of choice for the expression of who I truly am. When faced with something that carries high emotion, whether joy, anger, contentment or frustration, even if I am unable to articulate the spoken word to convey my feelings, it can always come out in a rational and useful way when I write.
I began keeping a "diary" when I was about 10 years old. From there, I matured to the ripe old age of 12 (or maybe 11 and a half) and began calling it a journal, "diary" being too immature a term for me to continue using. After filling about 5 journals in one year, on top of the numerous 10-15 page letters that frequently passed between my best friend and myself, I began looking for a more efficient way to communicate. When I was about 14 or so, we got to keep an old computer in our (the girls’) room. It had Corel Word Perfect on it, and I would wait until everyone else fell asleep, and then spend hours journaling about all the goings-on in my small, yet seemingly complicated life, although I freely admit now that it was only my topsy-turvy emotions which made my life complicated. To this day, I wish that I could go back and find that old computer (whatever became of it, I have no idea) and re-read some of the insane things that I surely must have put on screen.
And now, here I am, seemingly a million years and three lifetimes away from that girl I used to be, with a teenage daughter going through all those things I remember so well but have tried so hard to block out. Why, I ask, does life have to come full circle? My mother always told me it would, but I didn’t believe that it would be this bad. At the time that she was dropping those bits of wisdom in my ear, or rather, shouting them in my face, I didn’t really see anything so terribly wrong about dealing with somebody like me. I rather thought she had it a bit easy; afterall, I respected her, I said ‘Yes, Ma’am’ and ‘No, Ma’am’ when addressing her, I was more or less obedient, I was trying my best to live a Godly life, and I had never even come close to anything that could be remotely construed as a ‘wild party’ or even just ‘a party’, unless my parents were present or it was a family function. So what could be so bad about dealing with me?
Little did I realize the magnitude of the "Curse of Life Coming Full Circle" (CLCFC for short) that she placed on me. Little did I realize what it really meant. Now, however, so many years later, I am beginning to fully understand what it all entails. See, the true evil here is not that my daughter is a ‘bad girl’, just like I wasn’t. The true evil is simply that I have certain views and opinions and ways of “doing life” that I subscribe to, and that I believe very strongly in. The problem occurred when my daughter mistakenly began to think that she was somehow "allowed" or "privy to" her own thoughts, opinions and ways of doing life (crazy, I know!). I’m unsure exactly where she got this idea that she was “allowed” to have her own “life”, or even her own view of life, but wherever the idea came from, she embraced it, and now she and I collide quite a bit. And when we do collide, rather than getting her to see things my way, which I try desperately to do each and every time, all I really accomplish is making myself look like an insensitive jerk. It is beyond frustrating. It is almost beyond endurance. I can hardly believe that I deserved any of this.
I can still hear my mother's voice, haunting the far reaches of my memory: "One day, you're going to have a daughter who is just like you, and when you do, you're going to come whining to me about how hard it is, and I'm just going to laugh . . . afterall, it's only fair." At first, as you can imagine, I was angry about her CLCFC, because I knew she did not mean it in a friendly, loving way. But then I decided not to worry about it, because, as previously stated, what could be so bad about dealing with someone like me? Now, however, I realize the error of my ways, but alas, it is far too late to go back and beg her to lift the CLCFC from me. I can only do what she did with the one her mother passed on to her . . . pass it on to my own daughter, and to be quite honest, that is something that I am beginning to look forward to with a nearly inappropriate amount of glee. After all, like my mother said, it's only fair.
Footnote: Everything contained in this blog is true and correct to best of my knowledge; however, the portions of this writing that pertain to my daughter are more of a satirical view of the mother-teen daughter relationship than a reflection of my truest feelings :) I love my daughter very much, as my mother loves me very much. Only mothers of teen daughters can appreciate this writing to the fullest extent, although, in truth, that is not a state that I would wish upon anyone. :D
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