Walking Away

It's been a pretty rough few days. I got a postcard from my daughter the other day, it was pretty much full of lies and pipedreams, again. Nothing about her wanting to get and stay sober and try to get her life together. Just lies about how sorry she was and how much she wishes she was still 16 and carefree (I'm not sure why she thinks she was carefree then, she was the angriest 16 year old I've ever known). She went on & on about Yule & how she wanted her stocking so much & not to have to grow up and lose that. Thinking about stockings and happier family holidays just breaks us up too much to really want to have that in our lives right now. I can't even look at Lion King toys in the store without feeling like I'm spinning out of control, because that reminds me of her when she wasn't screwed up.

So, I wrote back & told her that we were pretty much finished. We won't be supporting her financially, in any way. All that we were doing that way was enabling her, and she ate it up. I told her she could never spend the night here again, that we don't & can't trust her anymore. It's hard to be cold to one of your children, even if it's the best thing for them at the time. She has to understand that we can't watch her destroy herself anymore. This is her choice, not our business, but it's so much easier when it isn't in your face all the time. We got so tired of feeling like babysitters & being yelled at because we couldn't just let her do what she wanted (she's on probation, and we forbade the activities her probation prohibits) and that we won't tolerate being lied to.

We've grown too used to the quiet, peacefulness that having just the two of us here brings. We aren't ready or willing to give that up, yet, if ever. We are finally getting a chance to just be a couple after all of these years of raising children together. We got together when my kids were 1, 3 & 5, so there was never really any "couple time." We had almost no money and kids to raise. It's nice now to have that time together. It's time for her to grow up, she's over 21 after all.