My daughter

I had a nice conversation with my daughter yesterday. She is so busy. She is a sophomore in college. I still have a hard time believing that this is the child I raised. As much as she is like me she is so unlike me. The poor thing had to suffer me as a mother in high school when I completely did not trust her and was like a terrorist in my attempts to block/protect her from wasting her high school years as I did. Her favorite story is our phone call when she called to tell me she was skipping soccer practice so she could look for costumes for the school play. I told her she was "going down the wrong path." I was so worried about her not living up to her responsibilities and commitments one of which was soccer I didn't even hear that she was doing the same thing for theater and had simply made a choice. All I heard was I'm blowing off soccer...and that leads to drinking, drugs and prostitution. Such an idiot. I can see now that I was simply projecting my own feelings about my choices onto her. I am so grateful that she seems to have survived me.

She is my role model. She is so involved. She's thinking about joining a German discussion group (German is her minor), I just think that's crazy..I never would have had the gumption. And she's an alternative spring break coordinator and will be going to Kentucky to work in some Horse Cave instead of to Cancun to wear a wet tshirt. She's a chairperson of a dance marathon that raises money for pediatric aids, she's met people from all over the world and visits them, she's getting decent grades...she's very focused, she's working as a waitress to help pay for school and lifestyle choices. She's going to school with all these rich kids yet works her butt off to be able to do the same things and easily says no when she can't. She takes the iniative in her life and doesn't wait for it to happen. I check myself now when she shares about her extracurricular activities..parties, concerts, kareoke, etc. the normal fun stuff of college life. My instinct is to wag my finger and warn...beware of the bongs..and keg parties. But I don't have to. Because she's doing it. She's living life in all its fullness. I know drinking is involved to some extent...and I can only pray that my life has been a warning to her. A signpost.

I can't help but compare myself to her when I was her age..I spent high school on the path (literally, there was a path between the 2 campuses of my school and that's where we got high), I didn't go away to college because I didn't want anything to change so I lived at home and commuted, I did not participate in any extracurricular activities besides going to the local bars, well yes I played softball for awhile but let's be real, I did that for the drinking afterwards, I did not socialize with anyone I went to school with opting instead for the drinking buddies I met on my job, I did nothing essentially but spiral down the path of drinking and addiction. Making wrong choices at every turn. My school life was literally for the piece of paper I thought would open doors for me..when what I really did was shut those doors.

It's just amazing to me the stark differences between us. Yet we are so much alike tempermentally. That's what scares the heck out of me as her mother. But that's where faith comes in. Faith, and Trust, and Acceptance, and all these things that we learn in AA. She has her own journey, her own Higher Power..though sadly she doesn't think so, her own life...and I am a bystander. But I am a grateful bystander. Just so grateful...and my son is about to begin his journey and I hope I can take these lessons as well for him. I am finding that remaining a bystander to your child's life is infinately more rewarding than trying to control and direct it. They do a heck of lot better. Thank you God.