I just got off the phone with Stef. Actually, I just got off for the second time. She forgot something the first. The phone read 26 minutes when we said goodbye.
I benefit more than anyone from Stef’s move three time zones west. All of a sudden there’s someone else awake when I am! She was good company after a difficult day.
Non-parents might marvel at conversations with this young woman… someone I’ve often wanted to kill and justifiably so. The feeling is surely mutual.
Parents totally understand.
That is the parent-child relationship. There is no interpersonal relationship so complex.
She’s a grown-up. She’s our child. She wants independence. She needs assistance. Life throws us these mutually exclusive paradoxes which parent and child then traverse as a soldier traverses a minefield!
We’re good now. There’s never a guarantee we’ll finish the week like that. Hell, we could go south as early as tomorrow!
When your child lets you in her life and confides in you it’s a good thing.