So there has been an obvious time gap between my last musings and now. I was busy guys. Busy doing life in my usual shit show that looks like a class act fashion. What can I say, it’s a style I’ve cultivated well. Keeping me occupied were my four teenage daughters. My goofy, needy giant baby of a dog Logan. Buying a whole house all by myself like an actual functional adult. Working. Then losing my job due to the pandemic. Falling hopelessly madly in love. Falling out of it, or trying so fucking hard to anyway. So see? Busy. I’m so excited to share the juicy details in all of the above topics. Well most of them. Not so excited about that last one but it’ll be necessary at some point.
Before I rip that sewn into the skin Band-Aid off though how about some happier focus points yes? I’ll start with the all-important, ever my first priority, literally nothing in my world more precious to me. My daughters. If ever there were four young ladies who so fully embodied the awesomeness that is feminine youth before my little squad you couldn’t tell it by me. I’m struggling to even know where to start with the subject of them. I suppose the most obvious places are the best beginning. Raising four teen girls as a single working mother is amazing. It’s inspiring. It’s consuming. It’s an unending source of pride and unequivocal love. And let’s be real for a few seconds here; It. Is. SO. FUCKING. HARD. I mean relentlessly hard. The kind of hard that is so huge and overwhelming that mothers must be biologically wired to withstand it. There’s a quote in the movie ‘Riding in Cars with Boys’ that says, “If we actually felt how much we love them, it would kill us.” That shit hits the core of mothers everywhere. The only thing bigger than the hard, is the love. There is always enough love to balance the unbelievable frustrations.
I take cold showers with fair regularity. Not to calm a raging libido. Oh no, nothing that sexy. It’s because all of my children will be in there for an hour relishing in the hot water supply until I am literally screaming at them to get out of the bathroom. Which they will do, eventually, and leave every single spec of evidence to their presence behind them. In the floor, on the counter, dripping down the side of the tub. There’s nail polish on their toilet seat. Gobs of hair on the shower walls. I wash laundry that has been cleaned and shoved back into hampers by girls who just want it off the floor so they can go to the movies, or the mall or whatever. They burn through coffee and creamer and chips like it’s their fucking job. They never refill the ice trays, like ever. They take my favorite mugs and leave them in their rooms, so I find them growing unintentional science experiments. They have mental blocks that allow them to ignore overflowing trashcans. Backpacks, stray socks, eyelash curlers, bras, lotions, and snack wrappers get left on every available surface of my home daily. It’s exhausting. Then one snarky joke, or quick hug in the kitchen, or sweet request to borrow my shoes because they think I’m still at least kind of cool, and I forget to be frustrated and exhausted. A 2 minute moment erases a week of pulling my hair out. That’s motherhood. And teenagers. If you have commentary or well-meaning advice on how I could or should better direct them, lay down firmer rules or harsher punishments, not allow that kind of behavior in my home, please, and I say this with all due respect, go somewhere else and choke on it. This is my ship, my gorgeous little pirates and yes, even my mutiny to handle. K-thanks!
These daily issues don’t even go into the mental stress mothers of daughters just inherently feel. The questions we ask ourselves over and over that only time can answer. Am I doing this right? Will they be ok? Am I messing them up? If so, is it like talk about their mom on a therapy couch one day messed up? Or just enough to keep them fun and interesting messed up? Will they always plow into my room to lay in my bed and talk to me about their troubles? They get under the covers and everything, even if I am tinkering about the room. Its heart melting really. Please God let them always do so. And grant me the wisdom they seek. Let me always be mindful that they are on their own journey, not mine, and that my job is to help them become utterly authentic in themselves and not in who I’d want them to be, or worse, who I wish I could’ve been.
They bicker incessantly but would charge straight at the fool who hurt their sister. None of them have escaped the hormone monster so some nights are eye rolls, exasperated sighs, and a few inexplicable tears. Side note – the amount of money I have contributed to the feminine hygiene industry should have earned me a lifetime supply. They all look alike and nothing alike. Their hobbies and skills are varied but they’ll always help each other. They are fucking incredible. Truly. If I accomplish nothing else in my time here, I can hang my hat on that.
Or I would if I could find from the last time someone took it without asking.
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