I could easily write another diatribe about how old I am, feel and getting but I won’t. I won’t dwell on my little girl coming up with her boyfriend that she may marry one day so I can meet him. I won’t dwell on the memory of the day I realized I had to let her go and grow up. I remember it vividly.
She was 12 years old and at Skatetown, USA in Maryville, TN for a friend’s birthday party. I saw her skating around the same floor that her mother and I used to skate on each week. We’d go there often to see each other outside of the normal place, which was at church. We’d break up there and see other people, make each other mad and all the things a young teenage couple experience in that place.
Now my daughter, the same age as when we met was skating around, flirting with boys and giggling with her friends and it hit me like scripture: I had to let her grow up. She was no longer the little girl that looked at me as a hero when I took that fish off her fishing line. She was going to get her heart broke a dozen times and I would have to wait it out with her and let her work through that pain so she learned to cope healthily with the loss. No matter how much I wanted to go break his legs, I had to let her handle it and deal with it.
I knew she was going to have problems with her work one day. She would be in situations where she felt alone and no matter how much I wanted to come in and save the day, I had to let her do it alone and learn how to manage and pull herself up alone.
It sucked. I felt the pain of a lifetime in that moment. I had felt it before with her brother so why can this not be easier the second time? It’s now 8 years later and I still don’t have the answer to that question. Also, I have a four year old daughter and will get to go through this pain again at an older wiser age which means I will experience even more pain but have less discipline to hold myself back from breaking a man’s legs that hurts my girl whether she is wrong or right. It don’t matter. She’s my little girl idiot.
I listened to a Darius Rucker song this morning that got me to thinking this way, “It won’t be like this for long”. And ain’t it the truth?!
I am meeting the boy this weekend and I look forward to it. We have a lot of things changing in our future as a family and I trust and love my daughter to do the right things and not put herself in harms way more than is reasonable. At some point, a parent has to let go and trust that you have done all you can and allow them to make mistakes and have successes on their own without your help. They won’t do everything that’s right or what you want them to do or how you would do it. But, if you at least get the courtesy of a question from them on how to approach something, you did your job. You gave them confidence in themselves and in your parenting. Everything you worried about is now a memory and they have the reigns. Let them drive it and live their life.
I love you my little girl. I wish you all the best and hope for nothing less for you in anything you do. You will hurt and be mad and dismayed at times. But, never think someone somewhere loves and cares about every feeling you have and understands when you make a mistake you will learn from it and you don’t have to pay for it the rest of your life. Never distance yourself from your mother no matter what. Don’t turn your back on your father because you don’t agree. Don’t not talk to your brother because you get irritated with each other. Don’t allow people you love and that love you to go without hearing you care about them no matter how stupid we get with each other. We’re family. You get tired and sometimes you just want to be mad.
Make your mistakes, make your successes and love your life. At any moment, you have so much to be thankful for regardless of what you have going on and it should be cherished.
Now pray for your old man not to scare the crap out of your beaux and be able to keep from breaking the fingers of the first guy that hurts KB’s heart.
Guess I did everything I said I wasn't going to do. NO WAIT! I didn't blather about my age!
XO ILY YM
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