Let Me Off!

I like my coffee hot, and my orange juice cold; my roller coasters fast and my Sundays slow. I was a sprinter in high school and I’m a napper currently. Life is often an up and down, back and forth conundrum of extremes. Which can make it good and exciting and rich. But my goodness, sometimes I want my life to resemble a good old average-priced glass of merlot served room temperature! (With just a handful of cashews to spice it up.)

Nothing I’ve ever encountered in my (phenomenally many) years of living has prepared me for the emotionally-taxing parenting of teens. And my introduction to parenting, 17 years ago, was not exactly stress-free. I spent my first 5 weeks of motherhood living with a newborn in a third-world country with very bad water in the midst of a civil war. (I cringe when I hear other mothers talk about the horrors of parenting newborns. I want to say, “You have no idea! Try caring for a tiny baby while living in a foreign country. With no English-speaking pediatricians anywhere. And no electrical power. Which meant Bad Hair days always.) But my husband and I survived, and our newborn survived, and, in retrospect, it was actually a walk in the park compared to Teen Parenting.

I have two really, really great teenagers whom I love with all my heart and soul. I would jump in front of a train for either one of them. I honestly would. They are good, wonderful people. But, that being said, they quite often drain me emotionally. And I believe that if anyone ever says that Teen Parenting is easy, they are either lying, in denial, or have a really great au pair that enables them to stay in denial.

This is the deal: The life of a teenager is fraught with drama. This is caused by a combination of hormones, unformed gray matter, immature life perspective, and a tad bit of self-absorption. And where teens do not have real drama, they create drama. Or their friends do. Or their enemies. Or parents of their enemies. And Teens view TV shows like “Gossip Girl” that perpetuate the theory that a teen life without drama is not a life well lived. So every day there is a soap opera -worthy story of who broke up with who, and who got arrested for what, and who picked on who, and who is their new best friend, and who they love and who they hate and so forth. I simply cannot keep up.

One of my friends very wisely told me to “Get off the roller coaster now.” She said there was not one mortal reason why I needed to feel the high highs and low lows with my teens. I had no business ride-crashing and that I should hightail it to the nearest park exit sign immediately. She was right. It’s just easier said than done when I’m the Tender-Hearted Feeler Type with Co-Dependent Tendencies. Super Hubs detaches really well. He won’t ride the ups and downs with The Teens. He’ll simply say, “Get your homework done.”

(Big sigh.) I’m tired. I’m just sayin’. More on this topic later. (After my nap.)