Every now and again a moment of great clarity hits me square in the forehead. This doesn’t come often in parenting. Usually a mom’s mind is muddled in a myriad of disjointed thoughts. It turns out that this clarity is in fact, my daughter. I remember seventh grade. Mean is trendy, no one knows how to apply make-up, and the boys can be downright frightening. Every morning, I come downstairs looking like something the cat dragged in. The first thing I see through my glazed eyes is a girl, confidently dressed with her backpack sealed up, ready to take on her day. She goes about her day with all the weight of seventh grade threatening her balance. The many hats she metaphorically wears, sway in the hurricane swirling through the hallways as she tries her best to keep things together. It’s the little things added up that are her burden to bear: test, lunchroom-seating debacles, mean-girl looks in the hallway, pesky locker combinations and ridiculous group projects. It’s all part of a formula that will get her ready for her tax paying years come. If she can make it through seventh grade, she’ll make it through anything. She has fortitude well beyond her 12 years. She gets it from her dad. Two peas in a pod, they are just fine with being the lone duck. They are in no way lame. The fact that she isn’t ruled by the whims of her friends, never ceases to amaze me. While I may often find her lost in an episode of glee, she gets that it’s all glamorized. Real life is much harder and the singing in the green team hall never sounds quite as good as it does on tv. But still she finds clarity from within and her song sounds sweet. Clarity becomes her and as I see it, there is no better way to be.
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