My girl

On Friday night, in the early hours of Saturday morning actually, I met my daughter.

I was on roller skates speeding through a corridor when I felt a presence following not far behind. As I came to a halt, a breathless twelve year old girl approached me.

“Why are you going so fast?” she asked, clearly distraught. “I can’t keep up with you.”

“We have to do it my way.” I said firmly but ever so kindly.

“But why do we have to do it your way?” she whined.

“Because it’s the right way.” I said.

“And why is YOUR way ALWAYS the right way?”

***

As I recited this dream to my mother the next morning, I felt uncomfortable.  “I saw my daughter in my dre-” I started to say but the second the words came out of my mouth, in the moment they were spilling out for another to hear, for me to hear, I realized that the 12 year old girl? That girl with the straight hair and the fear in her eyes? The girl out of breath doing her best to persuade me to slow down?

That wasn’t my daughter at all.

That was me.

***

“Three weeks ago you sat where you are sitting now and you know what you told me?”

“What?”

“You said, ‘But why do we have to grow up?”

“No? Really?  I said that? Are you sure?”

“Yes! You were laughing as you said it but doesn’t that strike you as something significant?”

Silence.

“It’s the same voice, I think. The voice in my head that used my lips to tell you ‘But why do we have to grow up?’ and the girl in my dream.”

“So who do you think is right?”

“I see the girl’s point of view. Why DO WE HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING MY WAY?”

“Why do you think?”

“Because we have to. We have no other choice.”

“Hope, who did you identify with more in the dream? The adult you or the girl that couldn’t keep up?”

“The adult me. But, I felt truly sorry for the girl.”

“Why?”

“Because she was afraid. She was so very afraid.”

“Well, if you could tell her something right now. What would it be?”

The room filled with silence. Flashes of the little girl careened into my mind. Her smile. Her tiny frame. The slight tremor in her voice as she tried to reason with me. My eyes welled up with tears. I wrapped my hands across my body in an almost self-hug and I whispered,

“I guess, well, I think. Yes. I think I’d just tell her. Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine.”