TheBanyanTree: Waiting on Daughter

[B Drummond]

Last week my daughter and I went to California together as you may know 
from reading some recent posts of mine.

Now I sit at her college's Student Center pecking away at the keyboard 
of this computer waiting on her to finish some evening classes.  I have 
run daughter to school duty this week and am passing the time with you 
guys.  Seems like a logical thing to do since I have my other work 
caught up on and I have the time.

I'm in an upstairs section of the Student Center where they have some 
fast food joints (Starbucks, Quiznos Subs, Mellow Mushroom, etc) and 
listening to the PA play Eddie Money's "Baby Hold on to Me".

In front of me is a fold up sheet of paper advertising "Episodes in 
SEXuality" at the Black Box of Townsend Center from March 14th-17th at 
7:00 p.m.  "DIVERSITY!" it says at the bottom of the page. What's that 
all about?  No, I don't mean what's that all about, but what's THAT all 
about.  You know, what's this thing about?  I assume it's a play or 
skit.  The only visual clue other than the words on the page is a 
picture of a woman's right foot in a super high pair of platform shoes 
with patent leather straps and a cute little buckle cinched at the 
ankle.  Entrance is free with student ID.   Looks like I'm outta' luck.

My daughter seems to have matured quite a bit lately (either that or 
I'm backsliding on maturity)  It's something that I have noticed that 
my spouse doesn't seem to agree with me on.  I don't see her maturing 
by leaps and bounds but, slowly but surely she's grasping what it is 
that she needs to do,  how to set her priorities and what sacrifices 
she will have to make to attain of her goals.  I like what I see 
happening in her.  Her grades are coming up, she's not partying so many 
nights a week, she's learned to be a little more responsible with her 
money and her sense of humor is improving.

She's a gorgeous girl with a sharp mind and a whole life in front of 
her. She's learning to grab life by the horns and wrestle from it what 
she needs to be happy.

While I, her dad, seem to be hanging on those same horns for dear life 
as they sling me and shake every bone in my body, thrilled to be along 
for the ride but not near as in control as I'd like to be. Often I've 
planted my feet to wrestle control and shape my world to my liking but 
it's bigger than me and my coping mechanism is, "hang on and don't get 
dizzy, enjoy the spinning calliope mural whirling by"

I think one of her last steps in maturity is that she must learn that 
she will never be in control, well, not as much as she wants to be.

Working life more to your liking or getting slung around by its whims . 
. .

  either way . . .

it can be one heck of a ride, can it not?



    bd
     -----