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Biting my tongue
2007-08-30 - 9:27 a.m. Ugh. I am feeling hot, tired, and dispirited. It seems we can no longer talk to N at all. Probably this will right itself in a week or so. Most likely this is an evolution of our relationship that has to happen. But it's awful. In the first place, we missed having time this summer to just hang out. Usually we go to Marion and have weeks of time where nobody has to do anything but be delighted by each other's company. Well, not quite, but almost. It's time where no one has to get to school on time or do homework. It's just time to spend hanging out, which is quite valuable. So instead N goes to Spain, where I think she may have been a bit lonely, and where she's certainly used to having no one tell her what to do. And then she comes back, and refuses to talk to anyone, and is actually sort of exhausted and grumpy, and she's stressed out and worried about what to do about the ADD thing, and about applying to colleges, and I am too, and since she won't talk to me about anything else AT ALL, apparently all I am doing is bossing her around. So -- it seems to me to be a sort of unfortunate juncture at which to abdicate my parenting responsibilities, but maybe that's just the way it goes. [And, to be honest, part of it is that I really do want her to go to some colleges and not others, which is completely my own deal, and I admit it. I don't want her to go to the University of Or3g0n, even though I'm sure it's a fine school. I can now see it coming, and I am going to be absolutely crushed when the girl who used to live across the street from us goes to my old school and N ends up at the U of O. I know this is evil and small of me. I am going to cry.] [On the other hand, and looking past that, I can see how there are lots of different paths in life. She could go to U or O for a year and then transfer to my old school. She could get into a perfectly reasonable school. She could end up at B City College and really like it.[The last is doubtful, actually.]] [I can see how she's thinking that the whole application process is completely horrible, though. There are huge spaces for all the awards and honors you have won, and actually, she has not won any. She can surely not be the only one -- I never had anything to put in any of those spaces. Not everyone is an athlete/debater/class president. And think how unpleasant the world would be if everyone was. What you've got to do is just make the best of what you actually have done.] [I predict this is going to be a very long and painful year.] [I would like to go live in a cave.] [I think we have to find a place where they will be happy to have someone like her. Where what she describes is exactly what they want.] [Unfortunately, I will not be allowed to pass all this good advice along. So I am biting my tongue.]
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