Month: May 2024

Teen Scenes

Jeanna GLeave a comment

When I was a kid back in the 80s, hair bands were rockin, hot rods were revvin, and leather, lace, and Lycra were stylin. We’d wrestle like Hulk and Macho Man, karate kick like Ralph, and Moonwalk like Michael.

You either watched what was on the one tv, or you went outside and acted like what you saw on tv. Celebrities were our idols. We’d scrape up our dog walking change and head to the corner store to buy the latest issues of Bop and Tiger Beat, tear out the headshots of our heartthrobs, and tape them all over our bedroom walls.

I used to watch our cousins compete over who could say the names of every rock star that covered their walls the fastest. There were a hundred if there was one. I always wondered how they could even see past their giant perms.

A couple years ago my daughter asked for a “big girl room.” At age 10 she wanted BoHo aesthetic with hanging ivy and macrame and gold accents. I was like, “Wow, times have changed .”

But then tonight she says to me, “I want to redo my room.”

“Oh yeah? How so?” I wondered as dollar signs blurred my vision.

“I want to paint it all one color and cover it with posters of all my favorite singers.”

Now that’s a trend I can buy into!

The Best Mother’s Day Gift

Jeanna G3 Comments

My daughter has been dancing her way through life for as long as I can remember. She jazz walks into a room, pirouettes her way to the mailbox, and slow taps Shirley Temples on repeat while telling me about her day.

This Mother’s Day weekend, my friend is freezing through hours of her son’s hockey tryouts, my sister is silently watching her daughter from the cart path through a combined 36 holes, and I’m fixing hair, makeup, and costumes for my daughter’s dance recital. Together we roll our eyes and ask why these things are planned on Mother’s Day weekend. The nerve! Don’t they know we just want to sleep through a weekend for once?? But we grab our coffees, load the car, and gps our way to whatever our calendar is reminding us to do.

But today I sat in the audience and felt gratitude for two things: 1) That the auditorium was dark as tears streamed down my face, because 2) the joy that radiated from my beautiful daughter shot me straight through the heart. Being with her in that moment is what motherhood is all about. Sure, laundry, taxiing, coaching, feeding, mending, funding, negotiations and acquiescing is the work. Witnessing their joy in being who they truly want to be is the ultimate reward.