Remembering This Life, Part 2

Here are some more beautiful memories . . .

1. The time I sent her on a two-week volunteer trek with a Jewish group. They drove to other states to do mitzvahs in order to learn and grow. The leader called me to tell me she was very depressed and acting weird, but they wanted her to stick it out. It was during this absence that I found all the rave materials in her room.
2. When she got back from that volunteer trip, and I confronted her about the rave stuff, and asked her whether she’s been sexually active. She admitted to already having sex with five boys. She was 15.
3. The time she bleached her black hair white to look a certain way, but she fried it. I bribed her to dye it black again. This one seems pretty tame compared to the rest of it.
4. The time I found her passed out on the couch with a pot pipe next to her. She denied she was smoking it. She was about 18.
5. The time I was folding her laundry when she was a teenager, and noticed all her T-shirts had depictions of violence, creepy characters, and drugs. I threw them away because they were vile.
6. The time I found out that she had come back to visit, but was staying with her old boyfriend in a tent. Later, I heard from her sibling that she got herpes from him and that’s why she’s so hung up on him. This was last year, when she was 24.
7. The time her car was impounded during a night out. She said she ran into a coworker she didn’t know well, whom she let drive the car, and he was stopped for a DUI. I paid to get it out because she convinced me she was a victim here. It turns out she was not only dating him, but living with him—and he went with her when she left to live in her new city. He lived with her there, too, until she broke it off. Worst part? He was almost 40 years old, divorced with two kids, and had an inferior job to hers.
8. The time I went into the condo she rented from me, after she had moved out to live in another state. She told me she had cleaned it thoroughly, but it was filthy. I had to throw the bed away it was so gross, and I found trash all over and cat shit under the kitchen sink. It took me three days just to clean the place so my husband could enter it. The carpet smelled so bad from cat urine, I had to purchase new carpeting. It was so horrible, my husband had to handle the rest. I didn’t speak to her for a long time.
9. The time she sent me a picture of her left ring finger with an engagement ring on it. She was living with the meth guy, and wanted to be a stepmother. I received it while at work, and almost cried aloud. Also, I figured he stole that ring for drugs and gave it to her as an afterthought. Years later, I think she was once again trying to get a rise out of me.
10. The time I caught sight of her nipple piercings. I think she was 18 or 19. I’m still queasy thinking about it, even though she took the giant door knockers off for good a long time ago.
11. When I realized that my daughter has been pierced on her eyebrows, lips, nose, tongue, belly button, ears (gauges too), nipples, above her lip . . . and those are just the ones I know about.