Leaving 9 Behind...

Soon, very soon…my daughter will be in double digits. With the start of the holiday season rushing in on the coat tails of Thanksgiving, it will be here in no time at all. And while I look forward to celebrating her 10 year birthday, I do so with the familiar bitter-sweetness that has become a hallmark emotion of being her mother. 

Age 9 has been an eventful one. It has been a year full of firsts. This year marked the first time she’s joined a team sport, playing for our town soccer league both outside and indoor.  This is the first year we have all come to learn the delicate balance that comes with managing multiple after school commitments. This will always be the year she got her first horse.  It was a beautiful moment, witnessing her stunned joy.  It was a surprise unlikely to be matched by much else for many years.  Age 9 also saw her first pimple, and an abundant show of gratitude once I managed to camouflage it with some of my “magic” cover-up. 

This year she began wearing those tiny bralets under her clinging uniforms…a decision that was much more about laying the groundwork, rather than because she really needed them just yet. It was also the time of “the talks” about hygiene and the importance of washing her face….talks made all the more imperative after that first major pimple appearance the same week as school pictures. We talked also about a girl’s first period, something hopefully that is a year or two off.  She is still so much a child, but there are some signs and things can change so rapidly and I want her to be more prepared than I was. 

She is still shy, though she is beginning to open up to adults she knows. I see her testing the waters by ordering her own food and having more animated conversations with her soccer coaches on the sidelines. I think she is more outgoing when I am not around, a dynamic I don’t fully understand.  All the same, I try to back off more and give her some room to engage others outside the realm of her mother’s shadow.  She is still so easily embarrassed and I am always afraid to upset the balance of her world in some accidental way. I am encouraged by her building confidence on horseback but dismayed with how much she still fears getting hurt or failing at something.  I find myself frustrated, watching her on the field, dogging the ball or falling back when I know she has the speed and skills to attack. I often ask myself, “How do I encourage her to be more aggressive?”  Then, I find myself asking, “ but do I really want her to be more aggressive?” 

My daughter is, at her core, sweet and reserved. She mostly plays her emotions close to her chest. At 9, she has developed this silly, funny sense of humor that she really only reveals to a handful of family members and her best friend.  Her timing is spot on though, and I think I have laughed out loud at her antics this past year more than any before.  I hope double digits brings her more confidence and more opportunities to share this wonderful, vibrant part of herself with others.

I am convinced 9 year-olds have compromised hearing. I need to repeat things four or five times before she “hears” what I am telling her yet, she her ability to eavesdrop on my conversations is startling. It has spawned more than a few arguments and shouting matches that have sent the dogs dodging for cover. My husband has frequently had to step in, to remind at least one of us, that they are an adult. My frustrations with my daughter however, pale in comparison to my pride and admiration for her.  

I have seen her push herself well outside her comfort zone to achieve something she wanted. I have seen her rally after an injury, stifling tears and tabling the drama to run back out onto the field or climb back up into the saddle.  She has been brave when she hasn’t really wanted to be. She has turned toward a challenge, even as I see how much she wants to run back to me.

My daughter is a nice girl. She is a good friend. She is loyal and loving. At 9, she prefers the company of girlfriends but seems to also enjoy the quiet and polite boys in her class.  She seems blissfully unaware that, in the space of a few years, the boys may start paying her a bit more attention.  Even as my daughter stands, fussing with stray ponytail hairs in the mirror and mugging playfully with her reflection, she is completely unaware of how beautifully unique and lovely her features are.  I have caught myself tearing up at how beautiful she looks in some outfit she has casually put together, not realizing how the color she’s chosen sets off those amazing sea green eyes or how the cut and fit show the graceful lines of her slim silhouette.  She is so physically different from me, that it takes my breath away.  The truth is, she just takes my breath away…in the moments of her wild at play, in the midst of her darkest mood, in the sweet silences of her sleeping…in all her movements and motions. 

My daughter at 9, might be my physical opposite but there are ribbons of my own nature woven into her being.  She seems to share my far ranging musical tastes, adopting my playlists as her own on our car rides and during our time spent cleaning or tending to Roo. She loves having people over, playing games and spending time with family.  She has greedily binge-watched some of my favorite shows with me, as interested in Stranger Things or The Umbrella Academy as she might have been with some of her more mainstream choices. 

Sometimes I’d like to say my daughter is a mini version of me, a “mini me”, but in truth she is very much uniquely herself. She is a wonderfully blended mix of her Dad’s quiet nature and summer-kissed caramel complexion and my fiery temper and penchant for debate. My daughter is also prone to goofy song and dance numbers, funny photobombs and bursts of manic storytelling. She is obstinate and argumentative, seeming to relish flexing her mental muscles with me most of all. She is unabashedly affectionate.  Most nights she clamors up between us in bed, insisting she wants to still fall asleep with us even though she’s almost ten. We wake up to her most mornings with one of her legs cast across our bodies or her arms around us, sleeping contently, as close to us as she can get. She will still randomly take my hand when we are walking, or drape her arm around my waist while we wait in line. She does these things almost unconsciously, undeterred by the strangers and observers around us.

She calls me Mother Bird when with her friends and Mamma when it is just the two of us. She will thank me, sincerely and unsolicited when I do something for her or buy her something she has asked. She will just as readily storm off with an exaggerated stomping of her booted feet when I scold or embarrass her.  

Everything in her current wardrobe is black, blue or gray and all of it is devoid of glitter, ruffles or depictions of small woodland creatures.  Even the dresses she selects for herself, when forced outside her typical leggings and hoodies, are unadorned and easily paired with cowboy boots and denim jackets by design. She is developing a style all her own and it’s one that I secretly love on her.  

There are a few months remaining until her birthday candles number 10.  I have enjoyed this 9 year old version of her, even though I have spent most of this year feeling like she was once again moving too quickly for me to keep up.  Her steps have been different than those she took as a toddler when her racing, stumbling feet kept her just ahead of my reaching arms, carried forward by momentum and sheer will.  Her steps away from me this past year have had the measured, deliberate cadence of a young girl discovering the best parts of herself to explore and expand her world. I am immensely grateful that, no matter how far ahead I feel she is getting, at 9 she still always takes the time to look back and assure I am still there….if and whenever she needs me.

Racing White Rabbits

The prompt in one of my blogging groups this morning was about Alice in Wonderland. Normally I would have jumped on that, after all, Alice is my favorite literary character and a reliable source of inspiration. The last few days however, my brain feels like its filled with dirty clouds. My thoughts are a jumbled mess of particles and I feel myself oscillating between a deep belly anger and a crushing depression. Pressure...its that underlying pressure to be both not something, and be more of something else. I want to be selfish. I want to say "fuck you" out loud to the critics and the people who are always so quick to villianize me. I don't though. I just absorb, absorb and absorb it. I throw open the doors a little wider, expose a more productive vein and say, "go ahead, take even more away." Then I go off alone and tell myself I'm not crazy. I tell myself I'm just keeping the peace and that it doesn't really matter as long as it makes everything better. Rambling, now I'm rambling, and what I should do is just delete this mess and write something witty about Alice and call this assignment "done". Check and Mark. But, the assignment didn't come out of me today...this did. Whatever THIS is. I made a commitment to myself and to this craft, to always be authentic and not self-censor - no matter what it exposes me too. Even if something I write plunges me all of a sudden into an unwelcome drama that leaves me feeling isolated and misaligned. Even if the things I write make me think for a minute about not writing anymore at all. I think about that a lot lately. I think about closing the blogs, withdrawing the submissions, closing the trackers...just hanging it up. Who does it even matter to? That question blinks back at me from my screen, stark in electric ink. Even as I type the question, I hear the answer in my head...in my heart. Me. It matters to me. It matters to my muse, my Alice, my racing white rabbit and all those deep, dark holes that beckon.

....so, what I will do is turn up Jack White and bury myself in the endless stream of work stress that is chronically parked outside my office door. What I will do is let this blog become part of the literary landscape...a steeper dip in the rolling coaster. What I will do is shove it all back down, because there is always something else I could be doing better for someone else. I can't afford to be distracted by my own feelings for too long.

I remember growing up my parents never let us quit anything, at least not without a credible reason. My brothers and sisters were into sports but I gravitated toward other pursuits, some of which turned out to be more challenging than I thought they would be. My parents were pretty good about saying "yes" to things I really wanted to do. Except for the "whole cage diving with great whites" request I made as a senior in high school...that one was immediately and resoundingly vetoed. But they did let me get my scuba certification as soon as I turned 15. I was the youngest in the class of mostly adults. In my part of the world, scuba lessons ultimately cumulated in an open water dive in typically choppy, and always murky bays of long island sound. I remember the day and how cold and raw it was. I was the last one to go in the final exercise of my certification, which was removing my weight belt - holding it free in one hand and then replacing it around my waist. It sounds fairly simple but by the time I went, the chop had kicked up and even just below the surface, I felt like I was being tossed around by vengeful ocean gods. My fingers felt like frozen sausages in my gloves as I fumbled to latch the belt. It slipped off time and time again before I could. It was the first time I thought, I can't do this but I refused to be the only person that didn't pass, especially with my family watching. So, I hung with it and eventually got it back on. It took me several attempts and by the time I finished my arms ached and I was exhausted. The instructor admitted when we surfaced that he had been ready to call the lesson, it had just gotten too rough. It would have been so disappointing if he had.

In my house now, we have a "no quit" policy in place too. This past Thursday my daughter's school had an event at the local roller rink. At first my daughter had no interest in skating but then once she was there, her interest was piqued and she asked me to rent her skates. We laced them up, got her a plastic skate buddy to support her, and she was off. Almost. She quickly became frustrated. She couldn't figure out how to transfer her weight and get a forward momentum. She watched the other kids with big, tearful eyes. She struggled, she fell. She cried some more. She adamantly declined my offers to don skates myself and go with her. By the time I took her aside, she was red-faced and heartbroken. I asked her if she wanted to take a little break and try again in a few minutes. She shook her head. "I have to get this," she told me, brushing at the tear tracks with the back of her hand. She started off again, into the throng of skaters, toward her friends. I watched her from the sidelines, resisting the urge to dash across in my heels to help her up when she fell or throw myself in the path of a whizzing skaters who threatened to collide with her. Instead, I stayed put, grateful for every skating parent and older classmate who stopped to help her or give her some tips. I saw her connect with a group of her friends, most of whom were also just learning. They moved together, an awkward but determined cluster. Slowly, I saw Jaden being to "get it". She figured out how to move forward, to turn and by the end of the night, she was crisscrossing the rink behind her skate buddy frame, full of smiles. It was a proud moment, knowing quitting hadn't been an option for her. She showed grit and determination and as a reward, she had a blast. She's already bugging us to go again. The next step is to move away from using the skate buddy and skate freely on her own. Knowing my daughter, I imagine she's already got to do just that.

And now for the day's actual prompts:


Blogging Circle of Friends
DAY 1213 March 11, 2016
Do vacations help you relax or stress you out?

Vacations as a child were a mixed bag. I remember driving to Florida in the back of an unreliable station wagon with my siblings which translates into the opposite of "relaxation". There was also that trip in the Winnebago where we got stuck in a campground in the pouring rain and my little sister got sick and ended up throwing up strawberry yoohoo all afternoon. I give my parents credit that we even had more than one family vacation. However, I remember the trip to St Thomas and the lovely afternoon we all spend snorkeling in turquoise waters and feeding schools of yellow and white banded fish. Family vacations are maybe more about grabbing those good moments and making memories rather than "relaxing". Even our own family trip to Disney was far more stressful than I imagined. It was a long day of picking rides and waiting in lines, finding something she would eat in the park that wasn't sugar-based and keeping it together waiting along hundreds of screaming, tired children after one of the boats went out of service. There were moments though, back at the house when we could sit by the pool and let her play, where we relaxed. It made up for the frantic bustle of the Magic Kingdom, which by 3:30pm, hadn't seemed all that magical to me.


Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise
DAY 734 March 11, 2016
Some personalities are high energy all the time, others so low energy you wonder if they're awake. Where do you think you fall on that spectrum and why?

Most days I feel like I fall dead center on the energy spectrum. I think it depends on the time of day too. If I get enough sleep, I tend to be a morning person. I enjoy waking up early, taking the dog out before the sun. That quiet time of early dawn makes me feel open and engaged. I envy high energy people, they seem to operate with limitless reserves.

All the Difference in the World

I am not always good at juggling life. Some days I do better than others. Some days, not so much. For whatever reason, this morning I had a breakdown.

Jaden and I were running behind schedule. I was struggling to get her into tights, the same tights she wears every day, and she was fighting me. Her squirming gave way to outright protests and she broke away, running off after she banshee wailed, directly in my face. The epic headache bloomed behind my eye sockets.

I'm trying to yell less, trying to be more patient. I started to race after her. I tried, for a moment, to find the parental humor in her dashing around the house with her little butt hanging out and her navy tights pooled around her ankles like elephant skin. Rather than laughing, I surprised myself by starting to sob.

I think I was worn out from worry, from frustration, from not being enough - having enough time to be enough. I think my reserves had been driven too low from dealing with chronic pain over the last few weeks and the constant concern about what those aches and pains might mean. Whatever the reasons, I just snapped. I heard myself crying, and they were ugly, raw sobs, the kind that hurt when they finally break free. I left my daughter, hiding half-dressed, in the bedroom closet and ran downstairs.

I sat myself down in the kitchen. I tried taking deep breaths, tried to calm myself down. Breathe, the voice in my head commanded.

I looked up through tears to see Jaden standing in the kitchen in her stocking feet. She walked over and put her arms around me.

"Sorry Mom," she said, and hugged me as tight as her little limbs could manage.

And I hugged her back.

After a few minutes, we wordlessly went back upstairs, hand in hand. We finished getting dressed without any further trauma and even made it to school on time.

Maybe its not a bad thing to show a little weakness now and then. The people who love us best know how to best bring us out of the darkness. Sometimes all it takes is a heartfelt hug from the right person or a kind word of encouragement to spell away a bad moment. A little love in the right places in life makes all the difference in the world sometimes.