Miss-taken identity

This new emotional frontier I've decided to allow myself to re-embark upon gets overwhelming at times. I'm glad that I'm allowing myself to feel and process these long-buried emotions again ... I just spend a lot more time crying.  Sometimes I cry from sadness and often joy, but most frequently it comes from feeling a flood of emotions that simply overwhelms me.

Tonight is the night. The preparations have been made and my daughter, 13 years wise, ready to take on an opportunity of community service and representing her community. She has lived in Fallbrook since she was five years old (minus that one year we keep trying to forget about!) and is a good candidate to represent this community. She has been volunteering since before she knew what that even meant. She has conquered much in her short life time and as I told a friend this morning "I swear, since she was itty bitty I remember looking at her in awe with respect and wondering, 'how does she just wake up every day?'" Community service is not new to her it has been part of her life since I can remember; giving her time to others without a thought of "what's in this for me?"

I don't need to revisit the challenges she has faced and the ultimate success she has achieved since I recently covered all that in my blog "Fight when you know you're right."  To say my daughter fills me with pride is a gross understatement. I know I was given the challenge of raising her for a reason. I also believe that God only gives you what you can handle and I can't be selfish and think that He only knew I needed these trials and tribulations but that my daughter, who has had eyes that could pierce through your soul as a baby, didn't need these trials too. The young, ambitious woman she is developing into goes far beyond my child-rearing skills. The spirit she contains is here for a reason and those reasons will continue to unfold as she grows, learns and ages.

for·ti·tude (noun) fȯr-tə-ˌtüd:
strength of mind that enables a person to encounter danger or bear pain or adversity with courage

Saying my daughter has chosen to follow in my foot-steps would be an insult to her.  She is taking on so much right now and it doesn't help that we're painfully poor. She's been having such anxiety attacks for the last couple of days. I told her last night "it's okay if you back out". Just having the nerve, bravery and ambition to register, focus, rehearse and get this far in the process was enough to prove to anyone that she has succeeded. As she's lied awake til the wee hours of the morning for the past two nights, I fear that I didn't use good enough judgment and should have been more discerning and maybe encouraged her to wait another year or two (or five!) before taking on such a huge task.  I didn't start pageantry til I was 19!

The past month has been hectic with trying to find all that she needs in order to compete considering her wardrobe was primarily skinny jeans, graphic tees and sweatshirts (not to mention her glasses with no lenses). We have made some investments in dresses, jewelry, makeup, and shoes - lots of shoes!

It hasn't been easy as my daughter and I clash very frequently. She feels frustrated that I don't listen and vice versa.  I try to impart my knowledge on her even pulling the "do you know who I am?!" card on her which actually makes me laugh at myself.  She refused to allow me to critique, proofread and edit her bio, she gets easily frustrated and interrupts with "I know mom!" when I'm advising her on the best choice of outfit for a particular event or occasion. She is stubborn as all get out and one can only imagine where she gets that from... *cough*

Thanks to Spring break and the boys spending some quality time with their dad, Mad and I have had the opportunity to really focus on her, some girl time (as we frequently joke about how "non-girly" we are) and some real mother-daughter bonding moments, including simultaneously bobbing our heads to a rap song that came on the radio in the car - we both instantly burst into laughter.  I'm not sure if we were blessed or cursed with the same sense of humor but she and I spend as much time arguing as we do cracking up at the similarities...

"Of all the haunting moments of motherhood, few rank with hearing your own words come out of your daughter's mouth."  ~Victoria Secunda

No matter the outcome tonight, whether she walks away with the crown and title of Miss Teen or not, my little girl, now blossoming young woman, has no idea and may not until she is a mother to a daughter herself, the immense respect, admiration and pure joy she inspires.

(make sure to hit the "play" symbol if you want to tear up and snot like I did when putting this together...)

"Suddenly, through birthing a daughter, a woman finds herself face to face not only with an infant, a little girl, a woman-to-be, but also with her own unresolved conflicts from the past and her hopes and dreams for the future.... As though experiencing an earthquake, mothers of daughters may find their lives shifted, their deep feelings unearthed, the balance struck in all relationships once again off kilter." ~Elizabeth Debold and Idelisse Malave