if only

hopeful. someone so strong who has done so much without a net. she leans on others, some she shouldn't, and always leads with her emotions. i've watched her through some precarious situtions. i didn't like her choices, resented her intrusion, then she became a friend. then she became family. i can't say "daughter" because i'm really so unfamiliar with what that would feel like that i have nothing to compare. maybe that's the way my sister feels when she snuggles with my neice. that the feeling is unlike any other she's ever felt, because before this, she didn't know what it would feel like either.

when she calls for an ear, a shoulder, some distraction, kinship and dare i say advice, i know that it's important i don't just roll into the place i go when i talk to friends with my similar experiences, older friends, without the same trust or willingness to follow. yet on many occasions the inability to go where i steer her because the pull to the comfortable path is just too great. thank God that comfortable psth has taken a turn away from lost. i always say i'm too smart for drugs, that their world would scare me away. another part of me thinks that it's all in what's "normal". the path that's shown as just another road and not somewhere that nobody should go, in fact family members and friends are there, calling you over, saying "it's great over here!". i have to admit that if that's what was shown to me, i may have just followed without asking. like she did.

when i see now the raw emotion that she shares, the places she'll go in her heart and, while worrying that it may just break, goes there anyway. when she says that she sees me as a mother figure, instead of being choked up and/or overcome with emotion all i feel is shock that someone would see me that way. i have a small glimpse into what she was masking, almost a protection of sorts, from the sadness and heartache that can happen in the days and nights of a life fully lived. loneliness, depression, fear, insecurity, inability, i imagine all leave when you ingest the mask and abandon the escape. and yet here she is, trying to cope sober and wide open to all the hurt and pain. where i didn't have ANY compassion to those who took the wrong path, never thought they lost their way, but deliberately turned, took the pill, prepared the needle, in hopes of feeling something other than what the rest of us live. life can be mundane, messy, scary, lonely, along with all the wonderful possibilites and feelings come the ones we don't want - it's rather brave to choose to bear them, to force through them. and here she is, still facing the fears, guiding her little girl through them, always close and protective, about to take steps that nobody should ever have to take. the path is set, it's lined with people holding hands to form a protective fence that is hoped to be a barrier between her and the wrong people, places and decisions, and i am proud to say that i'm right there next to her dad and the rest of us who want to guide her to where she needs to be. still scared of saying the wrong thing or steering the wheel just a bit to hard, she's my daughter. and that's my job.

Read more...