When Friends Move….
My daughter is 13. She’s a very strong, intelligent, and independent person. I don’t know that many young teenage girls (except for her wacky friends), so I don’t know what’s “normal”. I do know that she’s a joy to be around and that she doesn’t let much get to her.
That’s why it hit me so hard. She was looking quite unhappy one day recently. I asked what was wrong. Typical teenage response, “I dunno.”
Something, I don’t know what, prompted me to ask, “Are you sad because your friends are leaving?” I’ll remember her look forever — a mix of sadness, loss, surprise that I had figured it out, and a last vestige of a childlike awe. Then she let me hug her.
People come and go in life. It’s normal and natural. It was my daughter’s first adult realization of what that means. Going into high school, her group of friends is scattering. Several are going to different private schools, a couple will be going to public school with her, and one has already moved several states away to go to a very prestigious school. My daughter is feeling this pain of separation with a new intensity, born of raw teenage emotions and a very adult understanding. She no longer sees it with the childish belief that things can someday be the same.
She’s growing up.
It hurts.
