A Father's Angst Part II: The Daughter's Redemption

It took my Daughter only a day to mourn over not getting her transfer application accepted to the 4 year university in Richmond she's been aiming for.

Letter came on Friday; Friday night it was tears, anguish and a sense of abject failure, compounded by the ex-wife's "I told you so's"; by Saturday she was scouring Craig's List for apartment rentals (for the upteenth time) with the idea of moving down there, enrolling in the community college near VCU, and applying again for the Spring 2013 semester.

By Saturday night she texted me, asking me to go with her to check out a place.  And what a place it was; a 2 story walk-up in a VCU department building, right on the edge of campus, and only 10 blocks from the community college.  Not the Taj Mahal by any standards, it was clean, well lit and appeared to be in a safe neighborhood.  She plunked down the security deposit and the pro-rated August rent and suddenly things were looking up again.

My Daughter has a gambler's luck when it comes to making last minute plans work.  She's taking the first load of her possessions down tomorrow, and will be fully moved in by the time classes start on Monday.

All she needs to do now is find a job to have spending money.

What she also needs to do is stop contributing to my receding hair line.  I'll be talking to her about a "Plan B", which will consist of a second, and probably a third choice of schools to apply to transfer to, and not put all her eggs in one basket, nor waiting till the last minute to get things done.

This current situation is the best possible outcome.  Her mother had set a deadline of August for her to get into a 4 year school, or she was kicking her out of the house.  No matter that my Daughter has done everything she could to make it happen; no school, kicked out.  The stress and mental pressure that has put her under is incredible.

My ex-wife has never been to college; she has no concept of the difficulty in getting in, especially when one has sabotaged their high school transcript, and didn't fully apply herself her freshman year like my Daughter did.  All those things are totally my Daughter's fault, but she has been struggling to correct those mistakes ever since.

I'll save describing Medusa (ex-wife, mother of my children) for another post.

This one is just a simple blowing off of pent-up tension, and a huge sigh of relief that my Daughter will be able to escape the incessant torments of Medusa, and at least is once again, taking a step in the right direction.

A Father's Angst

Nothing pains a Father more, than seeing his child suffering the angst and sorrows of mistakes made in the past.

My daughter did not handle her high school career well, nor her first year of college.  Much of that is a direct result of the divorce of her mother and father (of which I accept the lion's share of blame).

She just received word that the school she was hoping to transfer into from community college, has denied her.  She had quit her job, ceased taking classes after the June/Summer semester, and was diligently searching for a place to live in Richmond, on the basis of what she was led to believe was a sufficient transcript post freshman-year.

That the school waited until today, just 13 days from the beginning of classes, to inform her is irritating, to say the least.

What is more disturbing, is the pain and sorrow her realization of her transgressions done 2, 3, 4 years ago are still impacting her today; a bitter "Life" lesson we all must learn. 

The Past is Past, as many would say, such as the counselor to Jesse in "Breaking Bad", "...you have to accept what you did and forgive yourself."  Jesse was incredulous that this man was able to say that, seeing as the counselor's "mistake" in his past was the accidental killing of his own child.  An extreme example, but my Daughter is still young, and to the young, everything is of major import.

And, how many times does one have to forgive themselves for the same past mistake?  And how does one reconcile themselves to the "follies of youth" when they keep coming back to haunt them?

No matter how one reconciles themselves to what they've done, immediately after having done it, it takes a great deal of strength to bear the burden of having to suffer the consequences time and time again, no matter how hard one works to correct the mistakes, and to move forward.

My daughter is both very strong, yet fragile.  Her strength is her primary weakness, for her ability to be self-reliant, self sufficient, impedes her ability to accept help from others, to accept that she can't always do it herself.

My emotions are churning; I can't stand to see my children in pain, whether physical or emotional.  All I can do is help them keep moving forward, but my words of encouragement sound hollow, when she is repeatedly beaten down by her past. 

I love my Daughter with all my heart; my first child.  She will forever be "my little girl";  she is so like me in so many ways (which she doesn't like to hear).  I will stand by her, support her (without creating dependency), be strong for her despite the inner turmoil of emotions roiling inside of me, and hope that by remaining optimistic, confident, that she finds her way through her current disappointment to remaining confident in herself, and continues to pursue the path, no matter how rocky it now appears, towards her future.