Am I a grandmother?

I think I’m a grandmother. Before the age of fifty, I’m a grandmother. I’ve taught my girls all their lives to wait until they’re in their thirties to get married, have kids, settle down. I’ve encouraged them to see the world, have experiences, live in different places, have different jobs, fall in and out of love many times before they can even begin to know who they are, what they want, and who they want to grow old with.

My formerly (and possibly currently) troubled daughter has a plan to get married next month to her now-fiancé and be the stepmother/mother to his two-year-old daughter. He now has custody of her and she’ll be with them most of the time. Most of this I learned second hand via my older daughter, who spent some time with them while home for a visit.

As I’ve fretted over before, she’s only nineteen and not equipped for such a responsibility. From what I understand (remember, I haven’t had the conversation with her), the plan is to have her work from home while he goes out and does landscaping. Of course, according to her, she still works at the job that doesn’t seem to have any record of her. I don’t even ask anymore because I won’t get a straight answer anyway.

Nevertheless, now it’s even more complicated.

Big Sister Reporting . . .

My older daughter is back from an exciting and adventurous trip to South America and happier than I’ve ever seen her. She’s matured in magnificent ways and has such interesting stories to tell. I wish I had been keeping a blog about her all these years. I wish she’d keep a blog of her own.

Because of her joy, I was surprised that she would want to deal with her sister so quickly. In fact, she’s only been home for three days and she made plans with her usually contrary sister. They grew up close and I raised them the same way, with the same rules, and the same values. Little sister just had (has) a rebellious nature and went down a different road.

I was nervous about their meeting. I had ten conversations in three days trying to protect my older daughter from disappointment, frustration, and even disgust. I was also afraid that she would discover things were way worse than either of us imagined.

Remember the symptoms: extreme weight loss, alienation, intense attachment to the new guy, untruthfulness about working and living conditions, fighting with her father, more tattoos and piercings . . .

I pretty much tried to talk my daughter out of going, then modifying my objection to asking her to limit the number of hours—all in an effort to protect her from anything unpleasant. Big sister is pretty tough and has seen a lot, especially because of where she lives now, but she lives by a different code. She goes to school, has a variety of friends, doesn’t waste her time on loser boyfriends, works, gets involved, and is connected to her family. Her sister is very different and it can be upsetting and depressing.

Engaged . . . I Think I'm Going to Throw Up

Yesterday my daughter made a big announcement. She’s engaged. Her boyfriend got on one knee and proposed, and put a ring on her finger.

Falling in love and getting engaged are two very special events in a young girl’s life. Dreaming about spending your life with someone special is certainly normal and beautiful. I love that she feels these things after all she’s been through.

But my daughter is nineteen and her fiancé is twenty-three (I think). That’s too young and they have nothing. No money, no car, no education . . . the list goes on. I tried to call her just to get details and maybe parse out their plans, if they have any. But she said she couldn’t talk—actually, she texted a picture of her ring and wrote, “Can’t talk now.”

All I could say was congratulations and how romantic. I mean it and I think it is. I just don’t want this for her NOW.

I have always had so many hopes and dreams for her, and she hasn’t attained any of them. She doesn’t want to, even though she was brought up a certain way. I always emphasized education and culture and family and clean living, and she has nothing to do with any of it. Now that she’s an adult, I have no jurisdiction over HER hopes and dreams. Mine haven’t really changed (maybe I lowered my standards in her case), but she simply has different ideas. I just don’t understand how she’s okay with her life. When I was a teacher and a single mom struggling to raise my girls, I found ways to live well on the cheap. We went to plays and exercised and participated in sports and music programs and ate good food and went on trips and had parties . . .

It’s the strangest mixed bag of emotions. I’m happy for her because she seems happy and she feels loved, but I’m so disappointed in her choices. If she actually marries this guy, I just don’t know what I’ll do. I’m certainly not paying for a wedding for a nineteen-year-old girl!

Undeliverable

Both daughters have been asked to be bridesmaids in their cousin’s wedding (dad’s side), which is a lovely honor. Their dad is responsible for getting them to Wisconsin for the nuptials—flight, hotel, and all that stuff. He hasn’t been a problem for me and we are amicable with each other, so I don’t mind when he texts me to get information about their e-mail addresses or phone numbers or dates they’re available or whatnot. I know they don’t always communicate very well with him—often ignoring him or disrespecting him in some way. I’ve tried not to speak ill of him, but there were times over the years when I was frustrated about money and probably crossed the line. But they really formed their own opinions, thoughts, and feelings about him without any influence from me.

Anyway, what I feel terrible about is that I know very little about our younger daughter lately, and don’t really know how to answer certain things. Today he asked a simple question—does she have a job? You know what? I don’t know for sure. I THINK she does, but sometimes I call her cell phone and she picks up or she answers texts on a random day when a working person wouldn’t be able to. She’s lied to me about nearly everything, so she could very well be lying about having a job. I’ve never checked up on her or stopped by the office. I just tried sending an e-mail to the address I assume she would have at that company and so far it hasn’t been returned. Maybe she DOES work there? All I could say to her dad was, “I hope so!”

It’s embarrassing (and sad) that she lives in my city—15 minutes away—but we sort of have no relationship anymore. She's isolated herself from me, her sister, her grandmother, and her father and tucked herself into the arms of who knows? For all I know, she’s broken up with the last guy I met (with whom she was living), and has moved one. I’ve tried calling and texting her, but get very little back about her life. She could be using, she could’ve moved, she could be a million things and I have no idea. I always used to pride myself on the fact that, with it all, I was close with BOTH my girls and he wasn’t. But I can no longer make that claim. We're now the same.

The e-mail message was returned as undeliverable, by the way. Whaddya know—she HAS been lying. Shocker.