Weird moments….

I’m sitting across from my daughter…a senior in high school.  Both of us are on our laptops, typing away…her for her future…and me in reflection….

We are listening to George Winston, the perfect backdrop for concentrated writing.  Piano at its finest.

My daughter is working on her college essay and she’s completely at a loss.  She was given a topic to write about but could literally only come up with factual information with little ability to elaborate on her experiences.  She goes through her life much like her father, moving on after each incident without reflection while I tend to absorb every second and every emotion.

But realizing the times, I’m reminded that we are a force-fed community.  We follow curriculums, do our homework, dot our i’s cross our t’s and don’t talk back.  Our society doesn’t really support free thinking and as I sit across from her, mulling over her life and trying to pull out more emotion, I realize that as she is preparing to go to college….her struggle starts here and now….

As a parent, I have to help her, but not too much.  This is the time to let her fall a bit, but as a mom, it’s a hard thing to do.  I have spent my life protecting her as much as possible.  But sometimes protection has its costs…

And as I sit here, across from her, watching her work towards a goal, she sits across from someone who’s still trying to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up.

I never went to college.  I certainly tried…and I may have even finished a class..possibly two…but that sitting in a classroom thing never stuck with me.  I always knew I was better off in life watching and learning the real stuff, than reading about what got us here.

I’m 99 percent certain that my younger daughter will follow my path, but I hope she has a bit more success and consistency than I did.  My life is a dot to dot page of jobs and people that may or may not complete a real image.  I haven’t stepped back far enough to look.

I just wonder sometimes how much following the expected path will truly get someone in life.  I know for sure it’s not for everyone.  It wasn’t for me.  Much to my fathers chagrin he would have mortgaged his house if I said I wanted to complete studies somewhere – ANYWHERE… and he waited…. but alas I left him hanging….

Years later we chatted and he actually apologized for making me think I had to follow in his footsteps.  Truth is I couldn’t have been more opposite.  I disappointed my mom too.. I couldn’t see fit to get confirmed as a Catholic… I told her I couldn’t promise something that I didn’t wholeheartedly believe in… and to this day I stand my ground.

I just never fit in a mold that so many others do.  And to that end, as I sit and watch my daughter struggle to write something that doesn’t come easy to her, I can’t help but want to swoop in and tell her to go with her heart.  But….I won’t… I can’t.  Because I know she is better than I was at her age.  Her dedication to school, her grades…for God’s sake, her ATTENDANCE…. FAR surpassed anything I was able to accomplish.

So we will tread forward in this journey and see where it lands her. She’s not me and I’m not her…  She has the world as her oyster… so many possibilities open to her, she has no idea.

But I will continue to talk to her and guide her as much as possible.  I will let her know that her choice will be fine no matter what she chooses.

Thankfully, she has an amazing support system.  We, her family love her, she has amazing grandparents, wonderful friends and she has her eye on the prize of what she wants to do…something I never really had.  And if she changes her mind along the way, that’s totally fine.  It’s her life.  At this point, we have done what we could to support her.

It’s just hard not to reflect on my own life and wonder what could have been!  I knew from an early age I wanted to write a book.  Sadly, my ADD got in the way and I’m reduced to my “Daily Tangent” that isn’t even so much daily anymore.  But it’s what I can do and it’s what I love.  I may not get paid for it monetarily, but I do get paid in feedback. And that’s just fine by me.  If I ever get to the point where I actually write more than a page…or perhaps a chapter…I can consider that a victory. But the one thing I can honestly say is that for all my blogs and all my writing… I didn’t go to college to learn it.  I lived life and I felt my way through.  My goal for both my daughters, no matter their path, is to feel their way through.  Love what you do with all that you are!  Be the best you can be but if nothing else….be happy!

In the end… that’s all anyone wants… right?