You know, I wonder why I thought to ignore all the warnings about teenagers. I mean, I have been told since my daughter was born in 1990 that the teenage years would be kind of tough. But here I am, amazed at the fact that they are kind of like what I imagine hell would be.

Not that I don’t love my daughter – I absolutely do! There are some things about her that make me smile to my soul – like the fact that she gets excited to tell her friends about God, or she wants to write poetry and be a journalist (maybe not like her old Mom, but that is something I used to aspire to).

However, most of the time I am sitting here wondering “what the hell?” For example, she tells me she doesn’t want to live with me anymore because “she doesn’t feel at home” at my house. This comes the evening following a morning where I made her change her clothes before going to school. Oh, and like a few days before Mother’s Day. And right after her father tells me we need to meet so that we can set Kirstie straight……

And then months later, after her room has been empty at my house with no one using it – and after I gave her plenty of time to change her mind – I decide to use the room for something else. (In this case, Deana’s brother who is going to college closer to my house). And what happens? Kirstie is shocked and thinks she is no longer part of my family because I did that.

Pass me the valium.

I have to remind myself, I am the adult here! I want to tell her she treats me like crap most of the time and then is OFFENDED when the world stops revolving around her. I want to scream at her and say she is selfish – she never even thought about what leaving this house would do to me or her little brothers. I want to tell her that I understand her way more than she realizes and I think about her at a level beyond trying to “be her friend” – I want to be her mother. I want to defend myself when she believes I don’t care, don’t love/like her, or that my rules are meant to torture her.

But I am the adult here.

And I love her more than she knows or will seemingly admit.

And my heart is broken.