It was a disaster of near biblical
proportions.
A calamity so great it threatened to
destroy the very fabric of existence: Teenage Daughter missed her
bus.
Oh, the humanity. The horror,
the...wait a minute, that's not such a big deal.
Well, it may not be a big deal to an
old guy like me, but to Teenage Daughter it is a catastrophe of Red
Cross levels.
You see, because she missed the bus she
would not be able to meet up with her friends, and if she could not
meet up with her friends then she could not hang out with her friends
and if she could not hang out with her friends, her life would be
over and what's the point of carrying on.
Hearing the devastating situation brave
Teenage Daughter was facing, I jumped to action. I dropped everything
I was doing, ran to my car, hit the gas and raced to where Teenage
Daughter was so I could re-unite her with her long-lost friends, thus
preventing the fabric of human existence from being shredded and life
on the planet would not cease to exist.
You are welcome.
I suspect the non-parents out there
don't appreciate just how close the human race came to complete
annihilation.
Missing that one bus could have set in
motion a series of devastating events akin to the Mayan 2012
predictions of global doom.
Or at least that's how things were
playing out in the mind of Teenage Daughter.
While I have never been a teenage girl
myself, I am the proud father of such a being.
Teenage Daughter is a bright, funny,
beautiful young woman who has such raging emotions and hormones she
can go from cheerful one second to her head spinning around and
puking green stuff the next.
Such is how the teenage girl mind
works.
I did not know any of this when she was
born. The day she arrived on this earth I saw a perfect little human.
After having two sons, I was thrilled to have a daughter.
I literally wanted to run up and down
the hospital hallways shouting “It's a girl! It's a girl!”
But, considering she was born at 1:20
a.m., I do not think others on that ward would have appreciated my
jubilant display of joy.
It was a moment I will remember as
clear as day for the rest of my life, as I will the birth of my sons.
When my boys were going through the
teen years I thought, “This isn't so bad.”
For about year, each boy went through a
phase where they were angry all the time, always at odds with us and
each other. But that passed and some very charming young men emerged.
I soon learned having a teen daughter
was a little more um, how should we put this - involved.
With the runaway emotional freight
train that is a teen girl, it took some getting used to the rapid
mood swings and outbursts of tears and laughter in the same 60
seconds.
Everyone I talk to with daughters share
similar stories of woe and strife.
Apparently that is just how the teen
girl brain develops as they struggle through those emotional days of
not quite being an adult and definitely not being a child anymore.
But in the midst of the
teenage-generated disasters, there is a wonderful young woman
emerging. One who is fun to hang around with, one who is witty and
charming and has a real heart for helping others, especially
children.
Yes, somewhere under that emotional
hurricane is an amazing young woman.
I know the days of chaos and strife
will pass and my daughter will break free from her teenage cocoon an
incredible young lady.
With each passing moment I know that
day is getting closer.
In the meantime, I will continue to do
my best to keep the fabric of the universe from collapsing and
killing us all.
Again, you're welcome.
Copyright 2015, Darren Handschuh
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