Open letter to my eleventeen year old and her peers.

Dear teenager,

  This is the hardest time in your life. Adults should really cut you more slack. It's a really bizarre place to feel like you can't emotionally miss your mommy and at the same time be tough and strong and independent. Not a baby but you're not an adult. Your emotions and your hormones are running rampant and your life is basically a catastrophe. Your friendships are all being put to the test because all of you are raging hormonal idiots. Boys stink. Girls are motional basketcases. How on earth do we make it to adulthood? How on earth do we make it through this trying time in one piece with any friends left? We rage and rage against literally nothing but our own frustrations. Being a teenager is a nightmare.

 This is a time when you feel like no one is taking you seriously and you can say everything it's in your head and it'll never come out the right way. And if anybody respects you and really treats you like a grown-up you start to miss being treated special like a little kid. You're in between stage and nothing makes sense. All you know that you just want to grow up get out of your parents house yada yada yada yada. Also "when I grow up I'll be nothing like so-and-so and such such".

My dear teenager. Just know that everyone goes through this passage. Most make it out alive. And everyone is better for the lessons they learn teenhood even though it seems like the struggle is stupid. All the drama all the friendships all the arguments all the fights with your parents. Those will all be worth it eventually when you're grown-up. When you have a teenager of your own, you will literally hear your parents words coming through your mouth and your very own teenagers will roll their eyes and sigh dramatically because now you "will never understand what they are going through". That déjà vu in itself is just as dramatic as what you're going through as a teenager. I promise.

 With your body changing and all the things you're learning in health class being so disgustingly real, we should probably just give you breathing room to vent and try not to point and laugh when you're hysterical. Because even though we think what you're crying about screaming about laughing about maniacally being crazy about, is super stupid and pathetic and trivial. That doesn't mean it's not the end of the world type of important to you. As grown-ups we should try to pull from our memory banks and recall what it was like to be you. Remember what it was like to be teased or taunted for having big boobs when you're sixth-grader. Or be laughed at in gym class if you are a boy because you're skinny and small and in jock minds inadequate. The world is cruel almost all the time in different ways. But I feel like it's the most cruel to a teenager. Not only are things complicated, but dammit nobody understands you! since we were once just like you we should try to remember and try to understand you.

Sincerely,
Some teens Mom


Ps. And grownups, if were nicer to our youth maybe we can expect them to be nicer to each other.

Work/ Life Balance

  This is the current status of life. I feel like I am prioritizing like a person with a new job should. But I would like to flip this cart for the sake of my sanity. Even if the portioned amounts don't change I would like to be on top ya know? What does your priority pyramid look like right now?

  Really I suppose it's more of a work, life, wife, mother and friend balance. To tell you truth I do not have it organized for shit yet. I have the work part down. I absolutely love my job. I get to nerd out all day about things I enjoy with my peers. If I took the people I adored from my times working at past jobs it would only be similar if Nordstrom and the motorcycle shop made a baby. And those are our customers too. That blend. All in all I am in my element with other people who enjoy where they are too. I couldn't ask for a better spot right now at all! So everyone cross your fingers that I get to stay there for a long while.

 Now try to add in half day morning pre-school Monday -Thursday for the boy with an early bedtime. And a dash of heavy workload for the husband. Pour in a dinner schedule that is completely falling by the wayside, two scoops of tween angst that needs motherly attention she just doesn't get anywhere else, a pinch of friend time and shake vigorously. Things are blending but just barely. I am feeling the guilt lately of spreading myself too thin. The gym has fallen to a back burner though I am still dedicated to my fitness ( 30 lbs down ya'll!!!! whoop whoop!!). The time to travel to and from the gym has become an addition I struggle with. I have to sort that out because it's part of that ME time I promised myself. Just because I enjoy my job that does not make it time allotted for me as free time. Me time equals free time, not paid time. I don't know why I have to remind myself of that fact but I do. Almost as though enjoying anything makes it less work which is soooooo not true because I enjoy my son and ohmygod he is a tough job.I miss my friends terribly and phone dates are even becoming impossible to schedule. Thank god I am not an in demand or popular social butterfly because holy crap I don't even know.


 So. How do I pepper in the things I miss? Like Bunco or lady dates or art ( last on my list but I miss it). I don't know yet but I do know how grateful I am for my friends who aren't assholes about the flake I have become. Life is hard you guys.


 In this same basket of thoughts, I have a deeper respect for my friends who work so much. And have husbands, kids, lives and social stuff to balance. I get it now. I am nowhere near the zen shit like you guys but I get it. It's ridiculous how much a no-school day can derail my whole life!!! When you get free and make it to the gym just know I am cheering you on. Because I get it. Eventually I plan to have this system running on cogs of magic and I will see you there. Hopefully soon.


 I do wonder how you all get from here ( total chaos) to there ( where you have some actual finesse to a schedule). Any tips are welcome.

How to feel feelings

    Have you dug through your past lately? I know I have several boxes and an old beat up trunk that contain thousands upon thousands of memories, good and bad. I used to look through them while cursing my parents for being assholes. I would rummage for old photos of handsome ex boyfriends to cry on when I had yet another prince charming let me down. And I would later roll on the ground in painful peals laughter with roommates as we looked through yearbooks and my secret stash of love notes ( some written and never sent were the best outpourings). These treasures I carefully sorted in an effort to find diaries kept from my
super early teens. My girl and I had a few very powerful conversations about feelings this last weekend. I think sometimes I should be more grateful for the small separation we have due to the whole step mom and didn't actually give birth to her thing. It allows me to look at her life with different eyes. She has so many things going on in her world that I remember being just life altering at that age. The world was probably ending every week or so because tween-hood is insane. And it's hard when you feel like no one understands your voice. You aren't big and you're not small. Rough zone to dwell in even for a kid in a "traditional" household environment. Toss in some divorced parents and a step-package and it's just a party all the time.


   All the advice I can ever give has to do with who I hope she will get to be someday. Her. I encourage her to think her own thoughts. Speak her mind in respectful ways that still feel right and good. Stick up for her own beliefs and lead with her best intentions. All in all it's sort of frightening how logical and rational she is naturally and I really hope she hangs on to that through puberty. But, if that goes out the window, and all else fails, the best advice I feel like I have ever given another human is this: You do not have to be sorry or apologize for the way you feel. You do however have to acknowledge when your reactions to the way you feel begin to make others feel badly. You can't just be toxic when you are upset or angry because "you get to feel that way". By all means, feel it. Just remember that if you damage another persons day because yours sucks, you need to own up to it and apologize for that. The action, not the feelings. If she can harness that ability she will be further along and more socially well adjusted than most adults I know.

 I think that is fair advice. Felt pretty amazing after that. And I hope it resonates through the teenage hormonal nonsense we will no doubt encounter here in the next phase of this girl and her growing up. I do remember those years of mine very clearly. I wish someone had been there to tell me it's ok to have feelings. Took a lot of years to learn that on my own and a lot of arguments held in the battleground that was our family kitchen, most containing the sentence " you just don't understand how I feel". Hindsight is always 20/20 and frankly I was a brat. But, I had a Mom that did not in fact have time or patience for emotions other than her own. That can be rough for a young girl. I'd like my kiddo to have a sounding board ( or a few sounding boards, a diary and a therapist) for her personal validation.

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I just read a post by a cyber friend of mine and it falls into the sweet territory of pre-tween hood. It's nice sometimes to read that a sassy sarcastic and intelligent Mommy has moments like mine and I want to share her post with you all. It's a great read as it her blog in general.

 

http://lifewithladies.com/sometimes-i-do-ok-sometimes-i-dont/

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