Daughters

 

 My oldest daughter is thirteen, and I helped her get ready this morning. We both tend to be hibernating bears in our approach to the morning hustle, but she was already dressed and eager to get on the bus.  Today is her chorus field trip, and she was decked out in her formal dress: black, sequined and sweeping the floor.

 

She permitted me to pull back her hair into a clip and accepted my offer of large, faux diamond studs.  I dabbed an extra bit of concealer on her nose, shared an almost-dried out mascara wand, and dug around for my natural color stick, the one that will help her chapped lips.

 

We’ve tentatively brokered a new way of interacting with each other in the last few weeks.

 

This daughter, like any child, holds a unique place in our family dynamic.  Second born, oldest daughter.  Artistic, creative, independently minded.  Like one of my favorite chocolates—firm shell with a melting center.  She’s old enough to have some bruises from others and as a fully-fledged adolescent, surprisingly observant about the foibles of human nature.

 

Sarah is a separate entity from me.

 

It’s wonderful and leaves me vulnerable.

 

This young woman, my child; this one is my worry stone.

 

I fear she is the child that didn’t get the full measure of my adoration.

 

She is wedged between the complete immersion that comes with a firstborn and the caboose babies that received a bit more undivided attention from their mother.

 

She is my smack-dab in the middle of (near-crippling-but-don’t-exaggerate it-be-cool) postpartum anxiety and ignorance that my toddler son was not developing on track.

 

I have one core memory of Sarah as a baby.

 

She is on my lap, her full head of hair on end, and we are singing and laughing.  That is my default memory of her babyhood.

 

That year with two children under 2 was just hard.

 

Nothing earth shattering about it.  Fact.

 

Now, she is thirteen.  I’ve grown, too.  I joke that my bandwidth has stretched to the levels of Elastic-Girl from the animated movie The Incredibles.  I can make my body into a parachute and catch anyone and almost any disaster.

 

Last year stunk emotionally for our merry band of travelers.  It just did.  Puberty and autism are challenging and confusing and a bit sad in moments.

 

It’s a new year.

 

Life gonna life no matter what, but we have taken it in stride.

And I can see my kid.

 

Our quiet times together, usually before bed, have often been neglected or rushed in this new season.  But with some persistent chiseling, she’s shown me some of her cards.

 

I’ve gained a bit of relational capital.

 

And she let me fix her hair.

 

And I let her borrow my shoes.

 

And she’s not the 4-month-old on my lap any longer.

 

But we can still make each other laugh.