Slightly water logged, we settled in to a restaurant a few doors down from her apartment. With daughters, you often don't know where a conversation will go, depending, most often on their state of mind and latest sequence of events. It could be a superficial discussion of fashion, catch up about friends or family, or, like last night, a rainbow of topics from reflections from her first year as a post grad student to what happened in Paris last week.
Now I am here to tell you, with no sugar coating, that we have had our share of what my daughter terms, "Epic Battles." It was middle school, and the battle began the moment we got in the car for school. I would say the same thing every day: "Don't change the radio channel." I kept on a Christian pop radio station that I thought would help get the day off on the right foot. Not-a. Bingo. She'd settle into the passenger side and flip the dial. HIP HOP. RUDE, LOUD, ANNOYING Hip Hop. You can imagine what the ride to school was like after that. Will against will. Steel no less. And that about says it all for the next eight years which put together a mom who was decisively "square" her whole life, and a daughter who didn't see the point in missing even an inch of fun.
Do you clamp down, lay back, hold the line or give some rope? The answer is as individual as trying to figure out one thing and one thing only: What will help bring this person to the best version of herself that she can be? And more: What will bring her along the path that aligns with God's? There's no primer with an answer. Tried one thing, didn't work, tried another. Talked to people more skilled at teenagers than me. Fought, made up, tried again... and so it went.
Somehow, we got to 26. And she has leapt back to the amazing qualities that defined her as a child: Enthusiasm, spirit, sensitivity, an eagerness to learn, and a sense of playfulness. Along with something else. The wisdom of having tried and learned. Made mistakes and gained.
What's all this got to do with you? Maybe you have someone in your life that you are in an Epic Battle stage with. Or just plain can't get along with. Possibly can't see eye to eye. Don't give up. Twist and turn the situation on its head. Try one thing and another. If you do it all with love, good intention and surround yourself with people who might know a thing or two more than you on managing tricky relationships, it will all work out. You just may be a bit grayer by the end of it!
