Last night, her sister stayed another night at their mom's alone. That made for a quiet couple of days for both of us. She shared that she may want to go out with friends tonight, and I let her know that it may mean missing her visit (or part of it anyway) this weekend since I have to work (and her mom is very unreliable at arranging transportation), but she should do what she needs to do. I was really hoping she would choose to hang out with her friends. She VERY rarely has done anything social in the 8 1/2 months she has lived with me. I am proud of the fact she has handed over the responsibility of caring for her sister to me, but she has not gone full-force into teenager-hood (some of which I'm happy about, of course!) She says she has friends, but she never goes places with them.
When I picked her up from school, she was extra quiet. I asked her what the plan was for tonight. She "snottily" responded that she was going to her mom's. I tried to find out if her friends just weren't doing anything or if she just decided not to go and all she would do was shake her head. She refused to admit that anything was wrong and said I was making that up, but something obviously wasn't right. My theory is that she was feeling guilty about wanting to choose friends over family, even though that shouldn't have been what the choice was about. I know she has to be feeling confused and torn during this transition...between wanting to go home, but knowing that home will be much more chaotic than the life she knows here; I think she feels guilty when she is happy here; I don't think she knows what to do with the fact that I care so much about her, but there is no changing that :)
I guess I ought to be grateful that there weren't harsh words directed at me this time, but the words that weren't spoken are almost as hard to take. I know she is hurting, and that hurts. I can't "fix" it, and I don't like that. I did make an appointment for her to see her counselor on Monday and know she won't be happy about that. I let her know that she can come back to my house at any point this weekend, so it will be interesting to see how long she will stay. I told their mom the little one can stay until Monday, so it will also be interesting to see if she asks for her to stay longer, stay shorter, or will be okay with that.
{sigh} cutting myself some slack for being the parent of a (someone else's) teenage girl, but I have invested so much in wanting to make this time in her life as good as it can be and it hurts in these moments when I wish I could do more...
Well, in referring back to my "ENFJ" post, I know that I need to make sure to take care of my needs too...and so I'll put on some make-up and a smile on my face and go have a drink with a nice guy.
Good night.
No comments:
Post a Comment