The teenage years

i have to apologize, nobody wanted to hear that.

Does she have any plans, cj?





yeah, the Director of Religious Education tripped over quite the little gathering in our youth group room last year. Fortunately, neither of my kids was involved.

K is working almost full time at Pier 1. She'll do that until she moves into the dorms in late August. She's also going to finish redecorating her room between now and then, converting from a teenage girl's room to a guest room.

Mine is working at the YMCA teaching kids how to play soccer. When her younger sister's team wanted to join a competitive league years ago, I made her take the FIFA referee training with me (we had to provide refs to the league to get the team slot). It got her the YMCA job, nobody else there has a FIFA L8 card (it also helped her game).

This fall she'll be attending college most likely out west. She's a California girl. I don't know how we will afford it, but we'll figure something out.

JPB - keep saying "employee discount" and I know your big girl will do great.

Cj - good for your girl helping to teach other kids. Good luck to her.

Well done the kids - well done the parents.

soccer scholarships?

I doubt that, unless they give scholarships for training assistants. She hasn't played in a few years, and was never as serious about it as her younger sister.

Leaving for college in about 5 minutes. It's been a journey. Next steps and stages commence.

I've taken to posting a yearly update in this thread. Here's what's been happening with the ladies...

K hated Roosevelt. She hated the school, the dorm, living in the Loop, just about everything about it. She survived the year and has since transferred over to Harrington as an interior design major. She's loving being in art school and managed to pass enough classes at Roosevelt last year to meet her gen ed requirements at Harrington. Each class there meets one day/week for three hours and includes a lot of studio time. She has survived her first round of mid-terms and expressed a lot of stress and anxiety over the pressure to succeed at this school and the amount of work required to do so, but she did it and is feeling better about herself (my phone may ring shortly and blow that statement out of the water -- I never know from one day to the next how she's really coping). She's also recovering from the flu and had that on top of the pressure of her mid-terms last week to deal with. She's gone from, "I love this!" to "ACK!!!, I don't know that I'm cut out for this..." to "I'm fine, I was just having a moment" all in about two weeks. Life.

She moved into an apartment in Wrigleyville last summer with two roommates. She's loving that too.

The boyfriend has been a good thing. They're about to celebrate one year together. He lives about a mile away from her with roommates of his own. They're close enough that they can see each other regularly and not so close that they don't have their own space and time.

Overall, she's doing great.

M has been struggling this year. She's facing a big crossroads in life and isn't looking forward to it. It's not that she's not up to the challenge but she wants time to stop so life as she knows it (high school student, living at home, all her friends nearby) won't change. She's been saying for years that she doesn't want to grow up and she meant it.

Well, time doesn't stop and she is growing up. Even if she stayed here and went to a jr college for a time she'd still be a college student and all of her friends will be moving on. Her own anxieties have peaked in recent weeks and she's really been suffering.

We all met with the college counselor at her high school and decided that she would best thrive in a small, liberal arts school that's well suited for strong academic students rather than a large university. She decided to apply to Knox (a small L.A. school about 3 hours away by train), and DePaul and Northwestern universities (large schools, but closer to home). She got her first acceptance letter this week which included a large academic scholarship. She said it was bittersweet. She's happy/proud of her achievement but it makes it all the more real. The letter was from Knox and I imagine she'll end up there over one of the larger universities but, who knows... she doesn't have to decide until May 1st. Hopefully she'll be able to put this stress behind her soon and enjoy what's left of her senior year.

Another year gone by.... a year from now Mr B and I will be empty nesters. OH - he's back in school too. He's doing graduate studies in Medical Infomatics at Northwestern, a relatively new field that's focused on computerizing health care information in the future. President Obama frequently mentions computerizing information that doctors use in both determining best practices and in creating personal health records for patients. That's the field that Mr B is studying.

Me? I'm trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Life changes are fast approaching. I've left our church, I'm bored with my career, and searching for next steps. Short term I've decided to take piano lessons. It's something I've wanted to do since I was a kid but we didn't have a piano or the resources to get one and/or lessons. I've banged away on ours for years and tried some self-teaching methods but I think I'm going to dive in and get some training. Beyond that... I have no idea. We're still planning on moving to New Orleans as soon as that's feasible but the economy may dictate that we stay here longer than we'd hoped.

Not much else is new. Everyone is healthy. Life goes on. Time keeps on ticking.

This is a good read, JPB.

That's a lot of stuff JPB.

Your girls obviously have had wise direction - from you and dad. They are blessed. I am sorry M is so stressed though. I hate change too...I belabor and cry and then find I am over it and move on. It must be hard to listen to though...I will have to ask my Mom how she dealt. Has to make you sad too...I still don't want to grow up - so I understand where M is coming from. Proud of her though...she will manage fine. Hard when you are right smack in the middle of it though.

Proud of K too. She is obviously managing well and dealing with life. Growing up...sounds like she has found her niche. So glad.

What a great thing that Mr. B is looking to the future and one step ahead. Sounds smart.

You - life is changing - empty nest - looking ahead. Seems understandable to me that you would be restless. SO happy you are doing something that you have wanted to do. Taking piano will be wonderful and it is such great catharsis to be able to sit and play.

I am sad you are having to put off your dream of moving to New Orleans...but it will come. I am sure.

((JPB)) love listening to you.

Thanks for the update -- I was thinking about you guys the other day and wondering how things were going.

That's huge that M got accepted to Knox and with a big scholarship too! I do get the bittersweetness, but major congratulations to her for that. Three hours away by train sounds about right. I loved Madison -- a pretty easy Greyhound Bus ride away from Minneapolis, but definitely far enough that it was MY place, not my parents'.

Enjoy the piano!

How's your back doing?

Thanks for the update! I feel as though I understand more about your life now. I'm just a couple of years behind you...my son is in 10th grade now and learning to drive. In two years he will be where your youngest daughter is now. And I think it will be similar. He likes the privileges that come with growing up, but not necessarily the responsibilities.

It seems tougher to be a teenager these days than I remember it being. Highschool wasn't as hard as it is now, and getting into college was a breeze. Maybe it's just that I was so gung-ho about moving away from home and starting my own life that I didn't mind the added responsibility. I actually preferred living with little or no furniture in a dark, cramped apartment that was ALL MINE to living somewhere that I was not in charge.

I don't think my son will be like me. Unfortunately, he likes the easy life. I worry that he won't work hard enough to succeed. (fret, fret)

I'm sorry to hear you left your church. That sounds like a tough decision, and probably one that was a long time in coming.

Thanks, Mame.

missi - yep, big changes for everyone, and all at the same time, makes for some crazy days.

hey, soz. Yeah - we're sure she's going to do well at Knox (or, anywhere else for that matter). She did an overnight trip there earlier in the fall and liked it well enough but wasn't sure she'd want to spend the next four years there. We suggested she take it one year at a time and only look ahead that far.

My back/knees/joints are pretty bad, but I've adjusted to not moving much. Thanks for asking. I don't have any arthritis in my fingers yet so I'm thinking the piano will be ok. I was talking to someone recently who had both knees replaced. He's about 10-15 years older than me but he said it was the best thing he ever did. I'm thinking about it... Nothing much to be done for the back other than core strengthening, which I do as best I can.

Eva - yep, it flies by quickly. I post in this thread seldom enough that I tend to read the entire thing each time. Some of the earlier posts seem like they were a lifetime ago, others seem like only yesterday. Leaving church... yeah, that was a big one. I was elected to the governing board a couple years ago. One surefire way to lose a spiritual connection with a place/group is to run the business side of things. I've never been involved in so much petty bs in my life. Made me have an entirely new outlook on who these folks were. I kept hearing the word "hypocrites" screaming in my head when I sat in Sunday services. Not wanting to be one myself, I decided to leave.

Not wanting to turn this thread into my empty-nesting, mid-life crisis thread but I guess this is about my journey as much as theirs. I'm thinking of getting a day job -- a regular one that gets me out of the house and into the world. I'd probably hate it. I've been spoiled working at home all these years but I'm bored, Bored, BORED doing the same thing I've been doing for 20 plus years.

Hey JPB - just start a day job on a part-time basis and see how it goes. If you don't care about the money, do something completely different than what you're used to. Front desk clerk at a hotel/motel? Working in the kitchen in a deli? Working in an upscale consignment store? The possibilities are endless and it can be a lot of fun.

I change my jobs all the time and I think it keeps me alive. Some of my jobs: I was a strata agent for condos, I lived in 3 days a week and looked after an old lady, I taught art camps for kids one summer, I was the Personal Assistant to the president of a mining exploration company, I managed all levels of education programs of a medical department at the university, and now I cook in mining camps. I'm applying to work on cruise ships at the moment just as an alternative option.

They say that to be happy at work you should do something you love. That's true, but I also think it's the people you work with that can make or break a job.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you decide to do.

I believe it was Issac Dennison who said something to the effect -- the reason the earth is round is so that we can't see into our future. I like that idea, I like it a lot.

I let K and her bf take the CRV on a road trip to Vt to meet up with friends for NYE. They somehow turned a 14 hour drive into 18 including a flat tire along I-90 outside of Buffalo. I gave her my cc to have in case of emergencies. They made it eventually, they're having fun, and they're making plans to come back via NYC and I-80.

There's a winter storm warning for today/tomorrow with 5-10" of snow expected. No problem -- they should be well on their way before the storm hits. She has limited cell signal where she is so we've been communicating by txt. I told her to deal with the tire before she heads back. She responded that they planned on putting on a new set of front tires before they left. New set? Did you consider getting the other one fixed? No -- I don't think that's a good idea. Ay, yi, yi!!!! I suggested that she ask someone who knows what they're doing look at the old tire and see if it's a simple problem before buying me a new set of front tires.

I'm glad she's having a good time. I don't want a new set of tires unless I need them. Knowing K, I have a feeling I'm getting new tires today.

I'm stepping in to a pt church admin job at a Lutheran church. It's a job my neighbor held until last week. It will be a good exercise in keeping my mouth shut (I don't subscribe to many/any of the tenets of the church) while learning how to interact with people face to face again. It's temporary -- I told them I would do it for weeks or months, but not past May.

I like it a lot too, dys. Thanks.

I've been a church secretary a couple of times in my life. You are right, there is no better way to lose a spiritual connection with a group than to get overly involved with the day-to-day operations. That's why I've intentionally held myself back from volunteering for much of anything where we are now. I thought I'd test it (non-involvement) and see how long I could keep a healthy mindset this way. We've been there (on the fringes) for ten years now...a record for me. Must be working.

I have to say, though, that I mostly enjoyed working for churches. At least, I did as long as the clergy were genuine. (If they're not...RUN!) Ignore the hypocrites as much as possible and focus on the good guys. There are still enough of them out there to make it all worthwhile. Even in mainline Protestant churches.