When your daughter is your soulmate.....

When your daughter is your best friend.... you have a lot of laughter in your house. You are more like soulmates, than mother/daughter. You finish each others sentences. You randomly break out into song at the same time to the same 80's music.

Christmas time. Right after she moved back home.

My youngest is turning 13 this month. Wow, what a struggle. I try to remember how much I love her and how much anguish I was in from about 11 until about my mid-thirties, when I stopped being a teen. Okay, it was not all the same anguish. Maybe about age 17? When I stopped lashing out quite as heavily at my parents. But we are in the throes of this and it may be a llllooooooonnnnnggggggg few years. I savor the moments that we cross the chasm and connect. And I drink in the compliments from family friends who tell me how sweet she is. How thoughtful. How mature. And I wait for the day that I reap the benefits of parenting her.

I remember vaguely when my soulmate/bff/sunshiny daughter was in this stage of life. It waxed and waned. But really, the struggle lasted on some level until this last year, after she had struck out on her own, getting out from my terrible tyranny. Then life hit her. A 19 year old uneducated girl with no money and no insurance and no skills. Add in some debilitating emotional issues. And she persevered. Pushed through. Learned about adulting without me holding her hand. (What?! How is that possible?)  She began to value herself. To see the validity in her mother's pushing.... push through the depression, get a job, clean your living environment (aka your room). She began to accept that our brains are synced. It is probably not a healthy thing, but it is oh-so-true.

Yes, we really did get matching tattoos.

Today, my daughter is nearing her 21st birthday. I am so grateful that she is in my life. I am so glad that I haven't lost her to the dark side. That she is okay with our crazy life and home. Here's to my hippie-chickie daughter and her bizarre sense of humor and love of 80's rock and all things tie-dye. I would call her my mini-me, but she's about 2 inches taller than I am!

The photographer captured us when we were getting family photos!

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