Ah To Be 15 Again (No Thanks!)

Fifteen-year-olds! Some days I just don't know what to do. One moment they can be the light of your life (I'm talking about my 15-year-old daughter, who happens to be brilliant, composed, full of common sense, and stunningly beautiful). The next moment, however, they can knock your legs out from under you with a hormonal meltdown that seems to come from another galaxy.

At first, I want to laugh at the insane statements and lack of respect sputtering from between her two lips. The very lips that say, "I love you Dad" every night. But as the drama continues, and I plead for her to tell me what she's thinking? Why she's feeling like she's feeling...the frustration builds and builds and finally I have to just shrug my shoulders and walk away. It's the hardest thing a father can do.

And it's the littlest of things that seem to ignite the rocket boosters of 15-year-old daughters. Tonight it's the simple fact that her mother allowed her younger brother to open his birthday present BEFORE his actual birth day. "HOW UNFAIR!!!" Next time it will be because the washing machine knob was left on the "cold" water setting when she really wanted to wash clothes in warm water. Dreadful, I know.

Fortunately for all of us, she's 15 going on 16. She'll be driving soon and I still have hair on my head ready to fall out when the requests for gas money, the insurance payments, the late night arrivals, and the traffic tickets start to roll in. All I ask is that she always feels confident in telling me what's on her mind - when she's good and ready to tell me. Then perhaps, I can amaze her with some brilliant retort to her question or statement that will keep her ever mindful that dad still knows a thing or two.

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