Dramanation

     Well, well, well.  Haven doesn't like me.  I've been anticipating this, and I am ready.  I am prepared for all of the verbal assaults and wordless daggers she is going to throw at me.  She's 15, and is gearing up for the war that all mothers and daughters wage during the teenage years.  I was an excellent warrior by the age of 17, and I expect Haven to be much nastier than I ever was.  That's not to say that she will be, I am just going to expect the worst.

     Haven told me this morning that whether or not I was a good person "was debatable."  Awesome.  I do not think that a 15 year old can quantify as to what is good or not.  Clothes, maybe, but character, I think not.  Science shows that their frontal lobes, which determine judgement and impulsivity, are still developing.  Haven has absolutely no idea what she is talking about.

     She is angry with me because she believes I side with her younger siblings more than I do her.  This is completely false.  The other children are corrected, if not more so, because they are learning "sister" boundaries and want to cross them at every opportunity.  Haven is only corrected if she uses a smart mouth or if she is being unkind, and she's rarely unkind.  She does, however, have a smart mouth. 

     Recently, Haven told me that she hates me for the first time.  Talk about a knee-dropping, breath-taking revelation that I certainly could have gone my whole life without hearing.  When she said the words, it felt as if my insides were exposed to outside elements.  It hurt.  But, my reaction was completely different than the way I was feeling inside.  While this is still confusing to me, I think I participated in the very first skirmish of our war.  I got lippy. 

     Maybe it was wrong to react to her words, but I did.  I wasn't ugly in my response, but I did go down a list of all the things I do for her, which was completely unnecessary because she had already stopped listening to me.  I knew she wasn't listening, and I continued on with my rant anyway.  Of course she only heard the one semi-negative thing on the list, and exploded in a deafening shrieking that made the whole communication a waste and unresolvable.

 
    It is my sincere hope that I no longer participate in exchanges that will not be beneficial to either of us.  I am going to try like hell to not engage her in battles that cannot be won by either party.  It is a super sad feeling for a mother to hear words like "hate" and "annoying."  I know it is equally as sad for a teenager to hear words like "lazy" and "disrespectful."  I am going to try something new with her, like ignore the words and make every attempt to empathize with her development.

     If it does come down to hand-to-hand combat, I am confident she will completely kick my ass.