I have been through a 5 month writing hiatus.  Many things going on. Lack of inspiration, lack of energy, fear, doubt, I don’t really know but I was just not in the mood to write.  Maybe I thought I had already said everything I wanted to say.  Can that be possible?

A dear friend has encouraged me to take to the keyboard again.  People read me and find it useful, controversial, worthwhile.  So here I go again.

I just reread my August post “On Suffering“.  That is one of the central themes that has surrounded me the last several months.  It’s parenting.

Yes, I have continued suffering through the uncertainty of the outcome of my kids’ lives.  Will they thrive or will they wilt?  How can I help them?

I remain committed to love and counseling, with very little discipline and anger even controlling my most boiling instincts to be (verbally) rough sometimes.

A few months ago, my 15-year old snuck out of the house in the middle of the night.  We caught her shortly thereafter.  Not worth going into the particulars.  What’s important is that over a period of 3-4 days after that, anger, shock disappointment, gave way to a beautiful glow of love.  I was suddenly entering a realm of curiosity, trying to understand her, to put myself in her shoes, to see the world through her eyes, trying to sense her own suffering, her own quest.

In many ways, her “quest” reminds me of my own as a teenager.  I was many times on the edge, experimenting, doing crazy things to feel “alive and worthwhile”.  I don’t sense my munchkin is trying to live up to peer pressure.  It’s her.  She wants to experiment.

Clearly there has been some level of depression and bullying of some form going on.  I don’t think any teenager escapes it nowadays.  My line has been to say “if you define yourself by what others think of you, you’re screwed.  You have no control.  Define yourself by how you feel about yourself, not through the eyes of others”.

My wife and I don’t really see things eye to eye.  She very desperately wants to be disciplinarian.  It’s her instinct, it’s what she learned and lived through as a teenager herself.  But she has become more comfortable in deferring to my judgment and following my lead to be loving, curious, inquisitive.

We have the “rule list”, the “limits that won’t be crossed”.  I have no idea if they are being respected, but my munchkin says she is sticking to them.  It is never 100% possible to prove that someone is being truthful.  You can easily prove a negative by example.  But proving a comprehensive positive is only in the realm of math, not of human experience.

I choose to believe her and I am trying to trust my unclouded instinct, my perception.  How are her speech, her motor skills, her emotional content, her language, her character, when she comes home from a party or hanging out?  That’s probably more meaningful than tracking her on Find My Friends.  After all, no matter where she is, good and bad things can happen.  In fact, the worst things can happen in your own backyard without even noticing.

I observe her smile a lot.  She likes having Daddy close and being able to talk to him.  I think she feels supported, protected, even loved, and no matter how “big and independent” she wants to feel, I sense she still needs that.  There is still a little scared girl inside the body of this young woman.  Very mature for her years, for good and bad, very cerebral and daring.

There have been many times in her 15 years when she has literally driven me angry, insane.  But the real discovery after she snuck out the window, was coming to terms with my own heart and rediscovering how much I really love her, like the day I saw her come out of Momma’s belly.  Words don’t do it justice.  She is my dear darling daughter.