I really enjoyed the 24 hours I had when I thought I had made a tiny connection with my daughter. Then…as the title implies, the door slammed shut in my face and I am outside again, looking at the locked door and wondering what to do next.
When I sent The Little Vine story to my daughter a few weeks ago, I hoped to reach from my heart to hers. I think I did a little bit. We exchanged some texts and last weekend I invited her to get together for a movie or coffee. She agreed to meet and choose lunch which surprised me as one actually has to talk and interact over a restaurant lunch.
We met at a restaurant that she chose, had a lovely lunch out on a patio and as we parted ways, she let me hug her good bye. I left feeling like we made a tiny connection. That feeling lasted only for a day.
The next day was a Monday and I got a text from her while I was at work, asking to meet for coffee that night; she had a proposal for going back to school. I agreed but went from feeling hopeful to wary as I knew she would push me; I just didn’t know how much.
Since my daughter’s suicide attempt/pill overdose a year ago, our stance has been that debt repayment and college don’t mix well. To succeed with full time studies, most universities recommend limiting part time job hours and with good reason. Studies are a full-time job as well. Of course, there are always those who successfully manage a full school schedule and work a lot but that is a model that has not worked with our kids.
Last spring, my daughter finally paid off her first car loan for the car that ended up undriveable with a failed transmission (the stress of which in our mind contributed to the pill overdose). Within a month of paying off the debt, because of some behaviors on her part, we stopped giving her any living allowance but told her we would pay for getting a 2 yr degree at a community college then transferring to the university. Since her car loan was paid off and she was paying down her credit card debt, the debt at that moment was a non-issue.
Within 2 weeks of our telling her she was on her own financially, somehow she got another car loan for a car with a mid 20K list price. She must have a super high interest rate to have gotten that. Now she is back in major debt, far higher bills than the first car loan and over coffee this week, she wanted me/us to pay for school again. My question back to her was “Are you in debt?”.
The conversation went downhill from there. I sat and drank coffee and let her vent for the next 20 minutes, spewing all the reasons I’m a bad mom and why I treat her differently than her brother who is biological (and who rides a bike as his transportation). By the time I got home she had a long text waiting for me, detailing why I’m a “fake mom” as well. She knows that barb aims for the jugular vein since I am her adopted mom. In the conversation at the coffee shop, she mocked the story I sent and in the text she said that everything I ever did for her was not for her but for me.
I thought all week about whether to answer her. The parable that came to my mind to tell her was the “widows mite”. Jesus talked about how the poor widow had so little to give to the offering compared to others but she gave all she had to live on. After she gave, she could not have gone back and given more for she gave all she had the first time. I feel that way with my story that I wrote for her. Maybe it does not have value in this world in terms of the great writers but I poured all of my heart into each word, trying to reach her heart. I absolutely know that I put “my all” into the story and that my motive was to try to reach her. There is no more that I can give. I took a risk when I sent the story, knowing that she could reject it.
I think her heart cracked open a little, that’s why we had lunch together. I think also, she purposely set up the coffee date to cause a division again because she is more comfortable at this point in her life with estrangement than with closeness. This gives her an excuse not to come for Thanksgiving or Christmas.
My plan is stick to my boundaries but refuse to feud with her and will not respond to ugly texts. We will pay her tuition once she gets her debt down so that she can concentrate on school instead of working to pay her high bills. She will still be invited to join us at family events and she will continue to ignore us.
Still looking for that happy ending with her. Maybe in the years to come, she will thaw. If I wait to be happy though…until her actions or her opinion of me is in line with what I want, I am held hostage by things out of my control. If I choose to reach out in love to her by text or note or phone call or invitation to family events, I control that even if I get ignored in return or even worse, get a hurtful text.
It’s hard though. I almost responded to her text. I wanted to write about the widow’s mite and make her understand. I ran that idea by my husband though who is more objective about the situation than I am and he recommended not ever responding to the mean texts including defending my motive.
So…here I am blogging instead. Sometimes I feel like a country music ballad of unrequited love from my kids but then I must balance that with the knowledge that some of them do like me; and my granddaughter likes me. When I pick up my granddaughter from her daycare to spend the night with us and she sees me across the room, cries out, “Nana!”, runs across the room and throws herself into my arms with a hug, my heart is warmed all the way down to my toes.
The good parts of my life will have to be enough for now. Maybe someday I will find an open window or an open back door to my daughter’s heart.
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