Teen Years - Full Speed Ahead

Son -

It’s the eve of your 14th Birthday. Every year, with the exception of last, I have sat up, no matter how late the hour and I have penned you a letter of words from my heart. I will continue to save these, and gift them to you at some point when you are truly interested in hearing them. As you are 14 now…this is 100% not the time for sharing (insert your eye rolls here - because - teen). We are in those “I’m your parent, not your friend” years, and I’m being told maybe in your 20’s you’ll come back around. So I keep writing…..

What a time in our lives. We have spent the last three and half years navigating our “together” journey. This last year you saw your mother, lose her father also. Just as you had already done so before me. How strong and courageous you were this year. Stepping up when asked, showing up, doing plenty of things you did not want to do, and most of all just riding the storm out with me until we were on the other side. I don’t know that I had anyone closer to me, than you, over the last couple years of my own father’s illness and passing. Some of this is the reason for (gasp) no letter, at 13 last year. Some of it was just your mom trying to navigate and figure out what she wanted for her own life and make some significant decisions and changes that impacted both of us. I know now, I made the right choices. They were hard, they impacted our daily living and they were necessary. Constantly bringing forward conversations that I never hold back on. You have seen human compassion, relationships build and crumble, kindness and weakness, and ultimately you have been intimately involved in choice outcomes along the way. I try very hard not to hold anything back from you. This might make or break you someday, but I cannot hide anything from making you a better person.

This last year you found that your beloved new Durango swim tribe, still had your back and became your group of besties. I continue to drive you to practice, most days during the week, and take you to the meets. You keep at it, you don’t give up and you have fought through some really hard social challenges. I’ve watched you sad, mad, angry and finally grow. You are truly forming choices that show the kind of young man you are fighting to become.

You have accepted that you are exactly who you are, today, and that’s all you need to be. We struggle, not each day is easy, but I watch your small successes over and over adding up. You have learned that the choice of who we surround ourselves with, impacts our own outcomes. This peer shit, and middle school, is hard!

I watched you go to a summer camp, 1/2 way across the country in Arkansas, where you didn’t know a soul. Walked right on in like you owned the place. When you walked right back out, you had 50 new friends, 15 new phone numbers written on a pillow case, and 100’s of memories created out of the spirit of your acceptance and grace for anyone else. You fought and gained the best of that experience, ALL IN.

I watched you go to a competitive swim camp, hosted at a D1 Swim College, and swim your ass off. Again, you walked in like you owned the place, and a week later you walked out with not just sore muscles and more technique and skill, but more connections and friends and passion for a sport you love.

I see a pattern here. You are at the age where you are starting to “walk in” and stand tall. You not only don’t want your mom there, you truly don’t need me there on most occasions as well. I’m becoming more and more the bumper rails for your teen years, and I’m just hopeful I have on the right shoes!

You have found a different kind of support system through a family who are dear to us, and you have been able to experience “family” and a male role model in this gift. It so reminds me of growing up with my own “other” family and having “sisters” and male role models of my own, outside of my own father. This is a gift, and one we will never take for granted.

Finally, we ran away for the holiday and spent a blissful three weeks in Maui with family, and it was the best gift ever. We spent more time just being together and having fun, with no plans and no stress. That might have been one of my better parenting decisions all year, and we will for sure need to repeat that. I am determined to keep your passion for travel and seeing this world alive.

I’m not sure how I ever got so lucky to have been blessed with you. Truly you are the proof that life is going to give each of us what we need, not what we want. And we were each other’s gifts. I will continue to strive to give you my all, and walk by your side (or walk from afar, for now). Everything I do, ultimately is for you.

Together, we are practicing the same walk….head held high with dignity and grace, kindness, compassion, yet with the confidence like you own the place. Sometimes you even still hold my hand. You slam those doors behind you, and notice what is in front of you for yourself and others, and you keep on going. You continue to use what you emulate from me in your voice, which is loud and unafraid, unapologetic for the right reasons. Never apologize for being who you are in every aspect of you and fighting for what is right, not just for yourself but for others.