Back On The Horse

I was highly panty-wadded when I wrote my “Cinderella” post. Upon some reflection, I was also scared and hurting and trying to process one of the first big hurdles in my relationship with K as a young adult vs. a little kid, and I am not too proud to say I handled it poorly. That’s the thing about me in relationships; I don’t adapt to change very easily and I tend to freak out until I can process things.

That doesn’t mean I wasn’t right about at least part of my suspicions.

We saw each other recently. I gave her the birthday gift, and though I know she liked the gift card, I also gave her some of my writing and I have to think that was more meaningful to her. The fact that she sat and read it through before the evening was over, commenting here and there on parts she liked, was exceptionally wonderful, I thought.

Writing for me is very personal. I know this is going to sound bizarre, but although I’ll blather on endlessly here in the relative anonymity of the Internet, I rarely let the people closest to me read what I write. No one in my family knows about this blog. I’ve been writing stories and journals for years and my own mother hasn’t a clue. My husband knows I blog, but he doesn’t read here (probably a good thing considering I like to tell you, oh Internet, all about my lustful thoughts for 70’s peace officers and Viggo Mortensen) and he doesn’t read my scribblings eventually intended for publication (ha) sometime in the near future (ha, and ha again).

Yet at its core, my writing is, and always has been, a vulnerable thing for me. I’m not afraid of criticism, so much, as I am of revealing too much of me, the dark and secret heart of me. The irony of my sharing such intimacy with people I have not met in real life and embracing their reactions to it is not lost on me, trust me.

But my daughter has given me something of herself, more than once, and I wanted to give her something too, something beyond the obligatory 16 year old gift cards and so I did; I’d planned on giving her a large swath of my life but I settled on just one. It was an intimate remembrance of a milestone in my life, and she read it, she enjoyed it, I think she got a glimpse of me all those years ago that resonated with her. I think it let her see me as the same kind of vulnerable she’s experiencing now, poised on the cusp of adulthood yet still fumbling with the last constraints of being a child.

For most of the rest of the time, I just listened to her. I listened to her talk about her friends, school, art…all the everyday things I must necessarily miss most days. I felt her reaching out for me. And based on a handful of words from a time in my life I can barely see from here, I think I actually caught hold this time.

We are not the same person, she and I, as she is uniquely herself, but she is so like me in her humor, her quirky sharpness, the deceptively sweet look that can hide so much. I may stumble and fall time and again, but I will keep trying, keep building, keep my arms wide open for the girl with my smile, and let her know that I love her, I am proud of her, I think she is amazing and lovely, and there is always a place for her with me.