Mother's Day is approaching and my daughter has been going through some very difficult times with other kids at school. It seems for the moment that she is mastering the situations that have been dealt her. This fascinates me because she is NOT the person I was when I was her age.
My daughter is a very lucid child. She is AWARE. She is a blue-belt in karate who marvels at sparring with older, bigger boys; she can ably handle a bow and arrow; and she seems fearless on stage. She is compassionate and articulate. Finally, she makes me proud to be her mother.
My hope, my wish is that she remains proud to be herself.
Dear baby girl wonder of my heart,
Being a teenager is heartbreaking. It is lonely and scary and fun and marvelous and can make you want to die...sometimes literally.
Please my love be safe and know that you are amazing.
Please hold your head up even when you don't wear the right thing to school. Your clothes are not your flesh and bone. They can be changed. They are a disguise like when you were a little girl and dressed up and changed who you were until you decided who you wanted to be.
Please know that you are loved even when the someone you are sweet on does not even realize you are there. You are loveable and wondrous and the stars twinkle at you. One day you will find a one who offers spice and honey in return to your affections.
Please know that just because they are older or cooler or more popular or adults doesn't mean that they know or have the market cornered on truths.
Please know that because they are young and supple and popular doesn't mean that they have a right to treat you as they please.
Please know that if they seem like rigid stinking assholes at the young tender age of teendom, they will probably grow up to even more rigid and smell worse...you do not have to take their opinions into your heart and let them deepen any fissure there.
You exist in this universe because you do. And as such you have the right to be treated and to treat others with respect.
You have the right to speak your mind.
You have the right to cry, freak out, be scared, laugh until you hiccup, and skip down the hallways at school.
You have the right to love who you choose.
You have the right to say no, I'm not sure, not yet, or wait.
You have the right to say yes.
You have the right to be loved for exactly who you are and not who others would wish you to be.
And if your heart should break, please know that it will heal. It might hurt for what seems like eternity. But it will heal because it is made of the strongest stuff I could find: love and compassion and nobility and pride and imagination and respect and hope.
And if your heart breaks, know that being a teenager, thankfully does not last for very long. Know that life is like that sometimes--heartbreaking.
Know too that there are trees and oceans and ice cream and spring days and snow days and snuggling in a cozy bed and rainbows and new dresses and good friends and a cat asleep in your lap...
And know to that I will always be here for you.
always.
I love you.
this is really beautiful Bridget, and coming from somehow you got her ass handed to her by bullies at your daughters age I know how hard it is. However, know this, those kids the ones they pick on in high school...well guess what we are the coolest (forgive me french) motherfuckers in college and beyond. Because unlike those snobby, rich, "pretty" people, we have personality, and in the "real world" thats all that matters. Hang tight sister, you are one cool chick. Thanks for this note Bridget I wish I had this when I was going through high school.
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