for meeeee,

For Meeeeeee,

FOR MEEE!

Need a hint?  Bohmeian Rhapsody, Freddie Mercury, Queen.

My girl.

Heads turned to see where that sound came from.  Perfectly on her note, no crack in her voice. 

And, I wept.

I got there just in time to see the Queen medley.  I missed her duet, but this high note was the thing she'd been talking about the most and I knew she was most anxious about it.  And, when it happened, I held my breath and opened my throat and lungs as if I were singing the note. 

Right...it's not the same note when you're a baritone.

These are the awards she won and her yearbook that she got yesterday.

Happiest moment for Dad?  Getting to the concert.  I drove just over the speed limit all the way.  No need to do anything crazy.  I am, after all, doing my best.  Actually doing my best to get there.  And, walking in just as they were setting up the combined choirs for the medley.

Saddest moment for Dad?  I'd like to say that it was when they were singing "Wherever You Go", a beautiful song that they use at the end of each year to say goodbye to the graduating class.  I wept.  But, the saddest moment was after all my trying to get there and making it just in time and and weeping, when she came out of the crowd, hugged Rob and didn't even look me in the eye.

But, I'm learning that it is not her responsibility to meet my need for affection.  That hurt.  But, ya' know, I'm a big boy and I got over it.  It did help that I'd been reading Yes, your teen is crazy!  This is one of the first things he covers, so instead of being confused about what I was feeling, I had great clarity about it.  So, I let those feelings go and smiled and walked behind them to our cars and offered to pick up tacos on the way home. 

And, we sat at the dining table, stuffing ourselves with crunchy tacos and listened to her talk 42 miles per hour and as we were finishing, she looked under her lashes at me and said, "I saw you walk in.  I knew you were there." 

And, just now, I wept.  That is a huge contrast to how the evening would have turned out if I had acted on my feelings of being ignored. 

I'm really enjoying this book.

And, I think everyone should read it.  I am not saying that you should change your life to what this Dr. says.  I'm not going to change everything about how I parent based on one person's opinion, because right now, what we're doing is pretty successful and is reflective of the lessons I want to teach. 

But, I was hurting.  The therapist has tried to get me to believe it.  Rob has even said it.  Now, I have it as a third opinion and I am ready to relax into it...because what I'm hearing goes against every thing I thought about raising a child and how they should be a visible reflection of the parent.  He says it with a lot of humor.  And, several times I cried on the plane as I felt the pain of a parent in one of the real life stories he shared.  I need to stop expecting her to be a reflection of her parents and to be sure that she is going to be a reflection of her parents...it just might not be in the things on the outside.  But, it's what is inside that counts.  It might not be in ways that I want it to be.  But, it's going to happen.  And, I need to model what I want her to be like.  Because she's going to be like what I model, whether I want her to or not.

I have been fervently marking pages...I've marked so many pages, I may have to buy Rob his own copy because he actually started it before I did and I took it away to read on the planes.

I'm feeling so relieved that I want to share that with someone else and am going to give away a copy.  I'll order it from Amazon and ship it to you.  Straight up giveaway.  If you or someone else needs to let yourself off the hook for what you see as your failures to raise the kid you wanted (you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find...you get what you need), leave a comment and I will draw one on Memorial Day.  Please state specifically that you do want to be included in the drawing in addition to any other comments you have.  Please don't forward this around.  This is for my regular readers.  Anybody else might think I'm a fruitcake for feeling this relieved, but you guys have read how I struggle with my expectations and the developing personality of a teen and know I am not a nutcase.  Just the parent of a teen.  Which makes me a nutcase.

Somehow, that was not supposed to end in a circle.

Have a great Friday.  If you're in the US, happy Memorial Day.  Please take a few minutes to talk to your kids about the contributions of the US armed services.  How they are put in harm's way to protect us.  Whether you believe in the cause or not should not interfere with your respect for those that fight the battles.  Honor those fallen.  Honor those that survive and respect the change it makes in them.

Lane