Thursday, February 2, 2012

My Daughter Would Kill Me...



...for telling you all this. But I can't resist.




My daughter-- who is a beautiful, snarky, creative and scary-intelligent girl who has a black and white view of what’s right and wrong in the world and definite ideas about how to fix it all-- turned fifteen on Monday.

Fifteen. That’s unbelievable to me. Partly because I’m her mother and that’s how I’m supposed to feel, right? But also because I think of her either as a little girl—like when we’re giggling over silly videos on YouTube or watching our favorite Disney movies together or making cookies and eating more batter than we bake—or I think of her as an adult because, to listen to her talk about world events, politics, history and sociology you would swear she was thirty.

But she’s fifteen. No question. I know because something so typically fifteen-year-old-girl happened to her the other day that my heart actually hurt.


And the story starts with three words you are probably all expecting now: There’s this boy.


Of course. All the “best” teenage girl stories start with that, right?

Well, there’s this boy. He’s been her friend for two years. And I mean, truly a friend. They text late at night, they let each other read their short stories (they’re both writers) and spend hours sending each other song suggestions on YouTube for obscure bands that they both follow. But he’s always been just a friend. And apparently as happy with that as she is.


But… well, you guessed it. The other day he told her that he wants to be more than friends.


Now, to his credit, he was smooth about it. And to her credit, she handled it well. But unfortunately, she doesn’t feel that way about him and she was quite upset… worried about losing the friendship, hurting his feelings and being awkward around each other.


She said he was okay with her saying that she’s not ready for a boyfriend right now. I thought that was a good, and honest, answer and should make everything fine. This way it’s not about him, it’s about her.


(which reminds me of one of my favorite Seinfeld moments. George's it's not you, it's me :))

Anyway, I decided to ask hubby for his opinion. His reaction was “he’s crushed”. I said, “no, she made sure he knew it wasn’t about him.” Hubby shook his head and said, “Doesn’t matter. He’s crushed. Nothing she can do about it.”


Ugh.


Then the guy bought her a birthday present. A beautiful leather journal with music notes all over it. I’m telling you, it’s classy. I told her she should rethink the boyfriend thing with that.

Anyway, they’re working through it and, so far anyway, preserving their friendship.


But…of course, my romance writer mind has taken this and wondered if she won’t someday look at him and think “when did he get hot?”


I do so love friends to lovers stories. *Love* them. Hubby and I are living one right in front of her, in fact *g*.


So if it happens to her it will be wonderful.


As long as it’s not before she’s about thirty.

7 comments:

Drmgrl99 - Dawn said...

This is so cute and I married my boyfriend from when I was 15. I was very resistant to dating him too lol n now 19 yrs later we r still married. Best of luck with the teenage/adult lol xoxoxo

Erin Nicholas said...

I didn't think I was ready for this! (well, I'm not really) But yet, there's something about someone thinking your daughter is wonderful that makes you like him just a little bit more :)
Erin

Meg Benjamin said...

Ah, this is so sweet. Makes me wish I'd had a daughter to go along with my two hulking males.

kelly said...

Aw! I too an living the friends to lovers story and can just see that happening to my hubs and me when we were that age. I wasn't ready for him then, it took a while, so you might be right - one day things could change!

Kim B said...

Yeah, he probably had his feelings a little hurt. BUT the fact that she didn't start dating the captain of the football team the next day will probably put them back on the good friend track.

StacieD said...

He has romance hero potential. How sweet is he! If your daughter isn't ready to be more than friends I hope they can both weather the awkwardness.

PG Forte said...

Well, hell, yeah, she's gonna kill you, E. Now you've gotten us hooked. You gotta know that at least some of us will be holding our breaths and crossing our fingers hoping things work out for them. (bad mommy!)