Unfiltered

She strides forward with confidence. She is all alone, there is no one by her side, but still, she holds her head high. She is tougher than nails.  She has no choice.  She had to evolve.

 

It is the first day of sophomore year of high school.  I am working from home and I get a panicked call from my baby girl "Mom I can't find any of my friends for lunch!" I immediately drive the half mile to the school to pick her up and take her home for lunch.  On the drive back home we see her friends all walking together going to have lunch at one of their houses. Just a few days later, that same friend calls my baby girl and tells her that 'they' the collective group don't feel comfortable having her sit with them at lunch.  I have known these kids and their parents since they were in diapers, before they could even walk.  Not one of their parents reached out to me.  Not one of those kids stood up and chose inclusion.

So she reinvents.  She cobbles together friendships and friends, but not a friend group.  She sometimes gets invited and celebrates the wins.  More often she is left out and sits at home alone and crying. She is the floater friend.  She is tired of floating.  It is a long three years of high school.  She skips proms and homecoming dances. She has panic attacks about having to show up to the events that are not optional.

It's a pattern.  It happens again and again.  And then she finds her friends at camp. And becomes inseparable. Until the friendships evolve and she doesn't understand why she is not the chosen one.  Why she is the floater.  So she reinvents. And finds happiness in the new people who immediately find her adorable and irresistible. Until they don't.

She says she hopes that she finds her forever friend group as she embarks on her next adventure.  I tell her that they are there for the taking, but she has to choose forever friend group.  She has to make the decision not to push people away when she becomes annoyed with and disappointed by them. She has high standards.  She doesn't have to abandon those standards, but there are consequences. She is in control, but it all feels so out of her control. 

At times, she might even try to push me away, but I understand her and I am immovable.  I will always be right by her side.

This girl.  She is destined for greatness.  It will feel like hardship. It will not be conventional.  I do hope that along the way, she will work on herself to either be content with her decision to have high standards and have friends for a season, or to come to a different choice where she is more accepting of human imperfection. (I have been working on it myself and have redefined my own approach to friendship with the next hurdle being included on girls trips - still a work in progress five decades in the making).

But in the meantime, it has been a long road to reach the end of high school.  So many parents posting on social media on graduation day yesterday of how proud they are - congratulations on achieving this incredible accomplishment - I find I can't post because I am triggered by the photos of the kids posing with their friends and I don't want to expose my girl by those friend photos being horribly absent in my own post, so instead I write the truth here and nothing could be truer than this morning as my baby stood on our driveway and looked up the road in the direction of the place she called home? prison? just plain school? over the past seven years and said with conviction "F*ck that school!"

So congratulations on the accomplishment of learning, finding your passion, having an impact as a scholar athlete, being truly seen by those educators who have made a tremendous difference in your life and most importantly on the gift of fresh start.  Go forth and be content with your choices and know that even if you choose wrong, there will always be another chance to choose again.

With love and recognition that there is no one correct path to or definition of success,

Mom aka the one that will always be right by your side