If you have kids it doesn't really matter what age they are you tend to worry about them. I think it's because you saw them be born (likely) and watched them poop their pants and upchuck on your face or mother-in-law and break the favorite thing you own or kick you in your face with their heel on the top of your nose while you are asleep after they had a bad dream and demanded to come sleep with you and your wife. So even if they are 35 you worry about them. Yesterday my son told me that since he is living in his wife's parents house he has the best bed and the biggest bedroom there. Since his wife is trying to finish her degree too, she has a separate bedroom because they are both A and B students. So last night my son said his wife wanted to change bedrooms but my son said, "Why don't I just give you my bed and I'll sleep on the floor next to you?" My son said, "It's less lonely sleeping in the same room with my wife."(They study all hours and don't sleep on the same schedule).
I happened to mention this to my wife and God daughter who was visiting and they both had an extreme reaction of just how important it was for my son not to be sleeping on the floor next to his wife. This just confused me because I don't think at all like a woman does. I was just trying to share how happy my son was that I took the time to drive down and help him move there to save money from the room he was renting in Claremont and helping him get a storage room for all his stuff so he didn't throw away or sell something he was going to need the next 6 months. My wife and God daughter were all about female power politics and I was taken aback not being ready for that point of view at all.
Then this morning I was dealing with my own abandonment issues. My grandmother (Nana) (my mother's mother) had her husband (my wife's father) take off and never come back after being married about 30 years so she always had major abandonment issues as she never dated or remarried. (it just wasn't her style because she was born in 1888 and lived until 1978(90 years). However, she was the one that basically raised me as my parents were always very busy while I was under 12 years old and so she lived with us and indirectly instilled this feeling of abandonment in me. It took me years to figure out where I got this from. So, anyway, I woke up this morning and realized I felt abandoned by my 14 year old daughter and it was really freaking me out and I knew I was kind of in trouble. (Also, too many relatives and friends have died in the last 10 years and this was only increasing the problem including my mother, 3 of my aunts, my female cousin, 2 male cousins, one of my best friends and my best friend from High School no longer knows who I am because of Premature dementia from Alzheimers. He is only 63 but I think the Viet Nam War shortened his life(mentally at least).
So, I was in trouble and was afraid this morning. Then we all went to see "Kick Ass" the movie which by the way is like a Kill Bill for 11 year olds which seems sort of like a "WTF?" And it appears to be sort of like "Superbad" and "The 40 year old Virgin" and "Knocked UP". It is sort of in this kind of genre but it is also very strange a little like "Kill Bill".
So after going to the movie I really needed to talk to my daughter. I said, "If you tell me you don't like me and you want me to go away that doesn't really leave our relationship anywhere to go!" And her response was "I don't want to talk to you right now". Which sort of left me feeling even more hopeless in this situation. Later in the day after I told her I was dealing with major abandonment issues she eventually got that I was suffering and finally said, "I love you, Dad. I just don't like you." I said, "Well. At 14 I didn't like my father either. "We sort of had a love hate relationship because he didn't like me listening to rock and roll and always turned it off whenever I turned on the car radio to listen to the latest top 40 hits. So I finally bought a little transistor radio with a little earphone so I could listen to KFWB and KRLA which were the two AM rock and roll stations in the 1960s in Los Angeles, California in the area where I grew up mostly.
But Dad and I got much closer as I began to grow up and into my late teens and 20s and beyond until he passed on when I was 35. It sort of ruined my life when Dad died. It took me until I almost died at 50 to fully recover from that and a divorce as well. I guess I was just too young in the way I saw life and was completely unprepared for how deeply one changes when they lose someone they are close to. After I learned what death does to a person when you lose someone close it was very very sobering.
Anyway, when my daughter told me she loved me it was enough to know that she would outgrow being 14 and partly nuts the way most 14 year olds are to a greater or lesser degree. Remember when you were 14?
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