My Outlandish Life

Parenting a teenage girl is hard. Like hold on for your life, try not to lose yourself, barely holding onto your crazy (except when you lose it and your crazy comes spilling out onto everything, taking down anyone in it’s wake), drink lots of wine, kind of hard. Maybe sons can be the same. My son just happens to be one of the worlds chillest most contented human beings. My girls however are gray hair inducing. Plus my oldest has a seizure disorder, to amplify things.

Until Jr high, I was a normal amounts of crazy mom. I yelled at times I wish I hadn’t, I said a swear word now and then, and I told my kids when they needed to go to their room because mommy could take no more without going over the edge, I called my husband in and tapped out when I think I might actually kill them…the usual mom stuff. Then jr high came for my oldest, and my perfect little overachiever became…less than perfect. Oh, who am I kidding? Jr high was TERRIBLE! Now hear me say, she’s a good kid, a really good kid. Nothing major, but normal “jr high sucks” bad attitude, grades slipping, and lies began to take place. I began to wonder if she would ever get it together. And suddenly, I was losing it on a semi regular basis. Yelling more, swearing more, and telling her she better go to her room before I possibly ended her life, more. She even reminded me last night that on one particular occasion when she was continuing to sneak technology in her room when she was grounded (because in jr high you think the world will end if you aren’t on Instagram…she literally told me that people would think she’d died…), I woke her up from her sleep, grounded her from her room the following day, and the next night made her sleep on the office floor outside my bedroom, “On a pallet on the floor like a dog” as she said. Sorry, don’t feel bad about that, at all! Perhaps I’m more OK with my crazy than I thought…

But praise God, those two years passed. She matured, grew up, and became a normal person again, and so I became a normal person again. I quit fearing for her life on a regular basis, and likewise, fearing for mine. Those years of my crazy staying neatly in place again were glorious. Sure, it may have poked out a piece of it’s ugly head now and then, like an ear or an eyeball, but that was all… normal… But somewhere around the beginning of 12th grade, crazy mom returned. This time I’m not fearing her choices, or at least not in the same way, but this “adulthood” year is HARD! We are at each others throats, both wanting respect and authority, and my crazy has come spilling out three times now. Big, terrible amounts of run for your life kinds of crazy. And hear me say, I have a good kid, a normal amounts of infuriating, “I’m an adult”, sassy attitude good kid.

So is this just what it is? Do all moms fight the battle of letting their crazy out way more than they wish, and holding onto themselves in the process? Is motherhood doomed to be a perfect mix of precious memories mixed with regret? Do all moms cry their eyes out this Senior year dreading letting go, but also anxiously anticipating it (even more than they dread it), and then feeling super guilty for doing so? Does age help, because I fear my youngest will actually kill me if not?

This is where I’m at, these are my questions… This is why I thank Jesus for grace and good wine…

Next week, a blog about surviving marriage when you feel like your barely surviving yourself.