Cave Dwellers

When my oldest daughter reached the age of "I'm smart and you're annoying!" I didn't really understand what was happening. I knew that others had warned me, and I had seen other mothers with their heads between their knees breathing into a bag while their badly dressed grungy teens stood above them oblivious. But I was young, holding my pigtailed little girls hands and shuffling off to get ice cream. I knew that whatever that mother's problem was-I would never be able to relate.

"Don't make today the day I lose my job! It would be horrible for you all to have to watch." I blurted this out in front of class to a student the other day. It's May and they're Seniors-if you are a teacher, I don't need more explanation than this. If you're not, then ignorance is bliss. I tell ya, teenagers can drive you to this point. Not the actual follow through (of course), but the thoughts..horrible extreme thoughts. And yet,I am amazed at my composure amongst over one hundered pubescent, pimple popping, Flaming Hot Cheetoh eating adolescents with the cloned argumentative spirit. I handle them like a quiet Prius, punching the gas, only when necessary. Then I come home. One Monster truck daughter with a glare and smug comment can send me over the edge. I have learned that breathing into a bag, saves lives-and not mothers! I realize the emotional connection and investment here. I get why I can disconnect to my students and not my own appendages. But when she smugly rolls her eyes as I am telling her about my day-it sends me reeling and all intellectual composure flies away.

My oldest survived which gives me hope. She is off to college and actually calls and misses her mother. She loves to come home and even said the other day that she didn't want to invite others to dinner when we meet because it wouldn't give us time to talk. This from a girl, who only a short few years ago, couldn't figure out why I was upset because she forgot my fortieth birthday. "You are selfish!" I think was the acid that rolled off her tongue. She was my Cave Dweller. She would hole herself up in her room, and I'd practically leave the food at the door. The sign of life from the dim hallway was that the crumbs would sometimes be left on the wood floor outside her bedroom. Cave Dweller immerged after a few years, a new creature-leaving the darkness behind.

So, I will venture on. My new journey with my fifteen year old, who chooses to not dwell in her cave, but dominate the rest of the house. I actually received a text the other night, as I was saying good-bye to friends who had visited. Behind the red blinking light was: "Could you all be quiet, I want to go to sleep!"