Well, last night everything came to a head with Salinda. It resulted in her sobbing in my arms -- more out of frustration than remorse -- but it allowed her to at least tell me something she'd needed to tell me for weeks. I am not naive enough to believe that this is the end of our struggles, just another time around the teen attachment cycle.
However, there had to be a big blow up before we could reach some kind of conclusion, so we started with calm last night, had quite the storm, and arrived at calm.
The whole endeavor does get exhausting sometimes. We see hope that Mercedes is learning from all her sister is putting us through and since I was wise enough to realize that I would do better with boys, we will only be going through this teenage girl thing twice.
I feel like I'm navigating through a mine field -- she has so many issues but no real mental illness so it's a different ball game. She has spent years finding out that two of her older brothers can do anything and never lose our commitment to them or our love. They have threatened to kill us, destroyed our property, robbed us blind, made false acccusations, run us through the court system, broken the law, been addicted, had sex .... and yet we remain committed to them and our love never dies. When I was a kid I worried about pushing my parents too far. Salinda knows there is no "too far."
We are off to worship -- our family will usher and greet this morning and Jimmy will acolyte.... this afternoon more shopping and Bart will return Kyle to his house in the Cities....
Each day a new day, every morning new mercies, a new chance to do things better for all of us.
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