Growing Up Pains

Teary eyed and bleary eyed I look at my reflection in my monitor mirror. My daughter has grown up and there is nothing I can do to stop it. twenty years ago I was divorced when my daughter was only fourteen. The years flew by. I had to work crazy hours to survive and saw Julie when I could. It never seemed long enough. We had time watching movies and eating out. It was all I could do with limited resources. Then I got married when she was around nineteen years old. I did it for her, because I wanted our boundaries to be healthy. I knew I needed female companionship, someone to take care of me and Julie was my daughter. I wanted to let my daughter know she did not need to take care of me.

When I got remarried I felt like I was in a tug of war. My wife naturally wanted top billing. The only problem was that I decided to marry so that my relationship with Julie could be on firmer ground. I learned it is impossible to keep my wife and Julie from not getting along. Julie went to college. We kept in contact with my tmobile phone I gave her. Then the plan became too expensive. It made sense to use my wife's Sprint plan to save money. Ever since that happened there was a drifting apart. Julie was given a smart phone by her mother. The other phone was put in a safe place until my wife Sharon decided she wanted it back, since Julie did not want it anyway.

My heart was broken when I realized that I had given Julie the phone to keep in touch. I felt betrayed. The tears flooded forth out of my eyes and would not stop. There was a flood of emotion that could not be stopped. I survived to see just how much I loved my little girl.

On Father's day I asked her to take a trip with me to Massachusetts. She was all excited to go. She had not gone to Massachusetts in at least eight years which was when I took her with her older brother. The day to plan the trip drew near and for some strange reason she backed away from wanting to go. She had a good excuse. School and lab work consumed her time. It just did not make sense!! Why the sudden change of heart? I finally got reconnected to her and got the semblance of an answer. She said she was real stressed and felt bad she did not call me back. She then went on to tell me that she had not talked to her professor yet and then wondered if I would still go to Massachusetts if she did not. It was then that I knew the inevitable chain of events had taken place. Julie had grown up and she was no longer my little girl. So here I sit trying to fight back tears long enough to finish a blog. Anybody got any kleenex?