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Thursday, October 29, 2015

Teenage crisis averted - for now anyway

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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