The Teen Dance

There is this new dance i am learning. 

Darn, it's hard! Quick steps, slow steps...and so easy to step on those turning toes!

What? Step back ..now?!
O, ok...catch up and do the twist here..
Keep in step, side by side...

Fools we are all. We never believe what we are told.
Dreamers we are all. We never full awaken to the force of truth...

What did i expect? it's hard to parent a teen, tween... She's like:
40% darling girl
10% secret, spying agent gathering more and more tricks (what? from youtube?!)
20% angst, mood swings
20% rough, angular
10% total mystery [if the other bits are not mystifying & frustrating enough already...]

This is 60% majority challenge - and yes, it is major exam year! Augh!

I have read, I have loved, I have led...but in my own turf, under my nose each day, the wind blows hither and thither! O to really love and to let her really live... daily i trip all over myself trying this new dance of space-distance-privacy-connection-communication.

We have so much to say to each other and then nothing comes to mind.

We want to laugh but it happens so much less because she is growing slowly into her own skin and we don't always find the same things funny anymore.

We want to stay close - forever - but growing is forcing a needed distance.

I miss the dances we did when she was little enough for me to turn, twirl and lift off the ground.... God, help me see the crazy steps of this new dance as a joy-dare dance and swing along!