Life as a Grown Up Girl

Life may not be very exciting (other than the ant convention held at my house yesterday) but I do have something on my mind. :-)

Today I must admit that I am confused over friendship. I watch my oldest daughter with her "friends" and often end up confused. In my own world, I skip along thinking I'm nurturing and growing deep and solid friendships only to find myself strangely out of touch with someone I thought to be a truly close friend.

With my daughter I think it's mostly an age thing. Although I've done my best to forget being in 8th grade, I still remember the schizophrenic-like place where many girls do friendship in middle school. Not that remembering helps me much in parenting through that. But I do what I can and I'm seeing (and, again, remembering) that largely it is a "live and learn" kind of thing. Drats - wish it wasn't.

But at 42...hmmm, can't say that I imagined friendship confusion at this age. And as far as I've come at being direct, well, what applies with the cashier girl at Walgreens doesn't always apply with the friend who no longer seems to have a spot for me on her calendar.

Sigh, life is life whether you are 14 or 42. And girls will be girls. But then I remember one teeny tiny important detail. My daughter is so watching me. When my friend began to cancel plans and not return calls and became more and more of a stranger even when we did meet up, my daughter would say, "She acted different." And I'd say, "Yeah, I know. Don't know why." And my daughter would say, "That is weird." And I'd say, "Yep, I should ask her about it." But I never do.

So I'm teaching my daughter nothing. Not true. I'm teaching her how not to do friendship as a grown up girl. And I'm being such a baby avoiding what could be an uncomfortable conversation. Let's see if I can do something about that.

But what if I'm not that big. What if all I can manage to tell her is that's what I should do but admit to her that I'm scared. That I'm afraid my friend will get mad at me and how much I hate when that happens. Oh my. So that's where my sensitive but outgoing little teenager gets that.

Here's what I think, 97.8% of the time doing the right thing, setting a good example, is the best parenting possible. But for the times when never in a million years is that going to be the case, there's always honesty. There's got to be some halfway good mothering somewhere in the midst of old fashioned messy honesty.

Or is that a lazy way out? I suppose a combination of tactics would be most killer. Dish out the honesty on how much of a 'fraidy cat Mom is but then pick up the phone and make a Starbucks date with my old friend. If nothing else to catch up.

Afterall, life is never the same from one day to another so what makes me think my friendships will be any different. I just realized this very second that I keep holding out for something in my life that does not change.

Duh. I'm such a dweeb. And as usual, I've rambled all over the place here. At least that hasn't changed.

Peace and thanks for reading. :-)