I was scrubbing the floors and listening to the lyrics of a song and there was something about being 19 and leaving home with just a note because you just can't stop love and the thought occurred to me that 19 was awfully young to leave home for a boy. Then the next line talked about breakin' her mama's heart and I realized that I am no longer the young girl in love singing this song. Instead I am the broken hearted mama with a 14 year old daughter that will soon be the 19 year old in love. Talk about a splash of cold water to the face.
It is shocking to think that it felt like just yesterday I was 19 when I met Bret and we fell in love so fast that our parent's head spun. We laughed and became indignant when we were told to slow down and that 22 was young to get married and that we were babies having a baby at 23. Song after song that I have always loved and related to talked about a daughter and her parents. Sometimes needed to just spread your wings, sometimes about a silly boy not being good enough, and just the passion and blinding love that you feel when you are so young and your whole life is ahead of you. I remember this feeling so vividly and although it doesn't feel like it was that long ago now it feels different. Instead of a red hot fire of passion it is more like a warm cup of coffee on a rainy day. Comfort, trust, stability, and solid are more accurate descriptions. There is still passion but different.
Besides realizing how much my marriage has changed over the years is the realization that I have a teenage daughter and how terrifying the role of watching her walk her own path in life is. I pray constantly for her. I feel like I am trying to hold the right amount. Not too tight but also not so loose that she floats away. I am constantly readjusting my grip trying to find something that works for the both of us feeling like nothing I do is right and that I am failing and that time is working against me. When I look at my relationship with my daughter there are so many feelings jumbled together that there are not enough words to describe it. Joy, pride, love, anxiety, fear, and frustration are the ones I felt just this morning as I helped her curl her hair (twice because the first time the curls were too lose so we had to do it again with a smaller curling iron) and get ready for school pictures today. It is staggering the waves of emotion that come as my daughter grows older and starts to make her own way in life that is different and separate from me.
I am learning as I go and although I am no longer a Dixie chick I am OK with now being a mama chicken raising her flock the best I can.
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