The Line between Daughter and Friend

MY TEEN DAUGHTER, ME BEST FRIEND - October 30th,2009

I had a lot to think about today. Just when you think it may be over, it's not. More tears fell today, which I was pretty sure, I should be fresh out of now. And I could feel another thing slipping away from me. I thought I had nothing left to be taken, but I was wrong. My Teenage Daughter. I am not sure I can handle any more loss in my life but today I faced more. The possible loss of my teen daughter to move back home. Move home!!.. back to a city 4 hours away from me. And strangely enough, this is the one that I think hurts the most, out of all the things removed from my life recently. This is the one that brings instant tears to my eye's.

You see me and my daughter have a unique relationship. Her friends envy her relationship with me. People compliment me on my relationship with my teenage daughter. She is not only my kid, she is someone that I have raised for the past 16 years, but she is also my closest friend. When she was a baby, I was only 17. I had lost most of my friends and found myself lonely with no one to talk t0. My baby was there, so I talked to her. My ex was working two jobs and still living the bar scene life, so T and I bonded. All through her growing up she was the one I would talk out things with and get her advice on. It was her and I. When my ex and I had the next two kids, it was T and I that both raised those kids. She's more of a sister to me. Now that I am entering my toughest challenges life has ever thrown at me, they want to take her from me as well!!

I am sick, physically ill over the thought of not having my teen here by my side. I would be lost without her now... and She wants to move home. She wants to leave me. She hates me.

She cries about how much she hates it here. How much she misses home where she has friends. She feels Edmonton is the enemy of everything that has gone wrong in her personal life. I feel devastated that I am the cause of all her pain. She is angry at me for leaving her. Feels I have abandoned her motherly wise and she has lost me as a friend as well. She has not been able to make friends at the school here, do you remember high school and how tough it was with friends. She dreads going to school and skips most days. My ex has to fight with her to get her to go, which compounds the anger she has. My heart breaks for her, she hates her life. And outside school she does nothing but baby-sit her brother and sister. I can see why she hates it. Would you not hate it? Would you not be afraid and angry. I know I would hate it, and I also know what I probably would have done by now, had I been her.

But when I get the texts from her this morning, I talk a good talk and beg her to come home. Ignoring how much she hates it, I begin making promises of a better future, bribing her with hopes. Hopes that I cannot promise her, when my future is so uncertain. I can't give her back what she wants and I know that, but I promise it anyways. And when that wasn't working, I pulled the 'I can't live without you' card and cried a lot. So much so that my middle daughter had to rub my back and whisper in my ear that it was going to be okay. It became about me, out of desperation to hold on to the last few things I have in my life. So T caved and came back. I was so relieved when she txted that she was on the bus coming home. Everything is going to be ok now, right?

I am not so sure, it doesn't feel like it was going to be alright. The more I have been thinking about it. The more the emptiness grows in the pit of my stomach. Fear and panic grow. I feel out of control of my feelings and my tears blur my vision. I think that I may be holding on to something that is meant to be let go of. My life has been a series of letting go, maybe this is a part of that letting go. I have taken everything she knows away from her, how can I keep punishing her by keeping her here? I am sure some of you feel, letting go of my marriage wasn't smart. Some people I am sure think I was crazy for letting go of my perfect management career. But look at what that poor girl is going through here. She is miserable, so unbelievably unhappy here. I see her unhappy eye's and know that this is not healthy either, even if she is where she belongs. And a small part of me drowns every time I am near her and feel her pain.

In a long discussion she has agreed to stick it out until the end of the term and then if she still hates it still, she could move home. This after much talking and convincing. She wants to go now, she is just compromising because she knows her dad will drown without her as well. But her leaving has it's draw backs for her as well. Loss of cell phone and a, your on your own kid, kind of move. She plans on living with friends, maybe she will call her grandma. My heart breaks a little at the thought of that. But now I wonder what to do? I keep her here with her family and yes she is fed and safe. But she is miserable and dying on the inside. Or I let her runaway home which is 4 hours away. On her own with know way of us knowing where she is. But where she will be happy amongst her friends?

I am sure every mother is thinking that I am crazy to even contemplate an idea of letting her go, but really look at it. She is 16, by law they can go at will now and she may just end up running away on bad terms, which would be worse. She has become toxic to her brother and sister already, she is not really watching them when she is suppose to be. I don't want to lose her to drugs because she is so miserable here, that she needs them to cope. But letting her go is teaching her to run away from her problems. OMG! I am so lost and devastated. Everything is much too overwhelming for me.

I love my daughter with everything I have and if she moves I will not only lose my daughter I will lose my best friend and I will lose my reason for getting out of bed in the morning. This has got to be the lowest I have ever been in my life. And it just keeps getting darker. How many shades of black can I experience?