There are a lot of things that I don’t like about my daughter growing older but one that is especially annoying is my new habit of second-guessing and over-analyzing pretty much every decision that I make and dealing with the voice in the back of my head telling me that I’m screwing it up. Her older sister seems to finally be getting her shit together and has grown up into a lovely young lady but I often think that has happened in spite of the things that I did, not because of them, that a lot of my choices back in those days were more selfish than I would like to admit.
If you go back into the archives here you can find lots of posts about things that we did together and a few about my efforts to keep that going but there are also several about her leaving and I’m not convinced in my heart of hearts that I did enough to stop that from happening or to avoid the events that may have led up to it.
It makes me wonder sometimes if that leads me to hold on too tight to the youngest. I tell myself that I’m just trying to get in as much quality time as I can while she’s still OK with hanging out with her old man instead of her friends but I’m not totally convinced she’s not just too nice to say otherwise.
This past week has been a busy one, a realization that “school” begins soon leading to a recognition that free time and warm weather are soon to be in our rearview. Last weekend we “camped” in a little cabin, a few days ago we went to the ocean for the first time all summer and yesterday we went to a little town pond beach for the day. In all three cases, my original intentions were to call up one of her friend’s parents and steal their kid for the day, something that they often do to us, and in all three cases, I didn’t.
Whether or not I should have I still haven’t decided. I don’t doubt that in all three instances she had a fine time and was perfectly content but all three times she also eventually wandered off and found little girls to hang around and play “big sister” with. There are those on twitter that might disagree but I’ll never be able to be a little girl for her to play with and I’ve been rendered medically unable to produce one for her from these loins.
She had a great week but as I write this she is currently back in the woods camping, this time with her best friend and I should probably accept the fact that she is probably having more fun, that at some point I should have taken this other girl along with us. I spent a lot of time and effort over the years teaching her how to share but might have to soon accept the fact that maybe I might need to start doing that as well. There’s a line between holding on too tight and letting them go that I find myself struggling with, a balance that I don’t quite know how to achieve.
I guess that fact that she isn’t here right now is a start.
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Previously Published on Thirsty Daddy
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