Coming Back to Her Real Self

I wanted to update my saga with my precious daughter. I thank my lucky stars (I don’t believe in God, so let’s get that straight right now) and whatever other energy is out there, that my daughter is alive and very well. She’s had the same full-time job for more than a year, where they love her and have promoted her three times already. She get excellent job reviews and customer reviews, and is learning a lot about what she's interested in. Unfortunately, it’s not what she went to school for. But that’s OK, most of us do something different at some point; I know I trained as a teacher and haven’t been in front of a group of students in 17 years.

Anyway, she’s doing well at work, and she’s also clean. I think she drinks on weekends, but she’s now 23 and is allowed to. While she used drugs for a time, and hard ones at that, and got in trouble, big trouble—she was never an addict. She chose that lifestyle (who the hell knows why), but she apparently has chosen to not be in it anymore. I’m sure she’s tempted—she tends to be depressed or easily stressed, and doesn’t share her feelings easily. But so far she’s stayed out of that type of trouble for several years, and reaches out to me if she’s in a jam. And by “jam,” I mean her car got dinged or she needs gas money. In the past, she’d lie, keep secrets, steal, sell something I gave her, or for all I know (and I have no proof), sell drugs or possibly herself for money.  That was a very different person at a very different time.

My daughter is finally working her way back to the person she was always supposed to be. She lost a lot of time, so she’s behind, but her intelligence, confidence, and sense of humor are finally re-emerging. She was a gifted child, though depressed and artistic. Her soul and mind are different from the average, and I don’t know if I nurtured them properly. I’m not talking about love or tending to her physical needs. I treasured (treasure) her beyond measure. She was attached to me as a baby and toddler, even though she was a wanderer at times. As she grew up, I put her in soccer and dance; maybe she needed underwater basket weaving or HTML coding. I took her to a therapist; maybe she needed to care for horses. I didn’t know. I just didn’t get it. I thought loving her and listening to doctors and embedding her in the suburban lifestyle was correct.

It’s good to see her being interested in all kinds of things now, and making plans and having goals. She’s working her full-time job and doing freelance work for me, while looking for other opportunities and applying to go to a new school. She’s lived in the same home for more than a year, and takes very good care of it. She actually takes pride in where she lives and takes care of her car, prioritizing repairs to it over partying. These are all signs that she’s growing up and becoming aware of her place in the world, not making the world revolve around her.

She has some major things to work on: for one thing, she’s sometimes abrasive to be around. I normally get along with her, but after a while, I’m done. She still cops a teenagerish attitude at times (thankfully, not often) and doesn’t like to answer questions. Also, she has nothing to do with her big sister—she won’t answer her phone calls or text her back. This has been going on for a very long time and makes her big sister very angry and somewhat depressed. My daughter says that her big sister treats her condescendingly and she won’t stand for it (wait, who does she think she is being on her high horse??). I want to get involved, but historically, I’ve made it worse. When I feel I have the power to make a difference, I’ll try again.

Her other big issue is whom she chooses to date. She’s now with someone who’s much older and who has four or five kids. Forgetting those red flags (which I can’t), she hates kids. She says he’s wonderful, treats her like a partner, cooks, is responsible, blah blah blah, but he works with her, she outranks him, and he doesn’t even have a car. To me, this is a representation of what she thinks of herself. I do understand; I had that period of my life and that’s where her father came in. He was beneath me, but he was “fun”! I grew out of that by the time she was born; I hope she finds her real, true worth as well.

So I feel hopeful that her outlaw days are over. I feel she needs counseling desperately to sort through her feelings of inadequacy, guilt, remorse, distance from her family, and anger. I’ve given her names of therapists in walking distance to her home, but she doesn’t go. I can’t make her, but I hope someday she’ll take the time for herself to explore that. I think about her night and day, but at least I'm not lying awake at night wondering if she's passed out behind the wheel or locked in someone's basement.