My daughter comes home with stories and drama that are truly hilarious sometimes. In one story, one of her friends didn’t tell the parents about going to a party. She got shitfaced and puked. The friends brought her home, but obviously the parents found out and she was grounded for a month. Others tell of more tribal stories where so-and-so isn’t getting along with some other he/she/they/them and invariably, someone always gets ostracized. Most of these interactions are self-inflicted and almost all of them are recoverable. Until the conflict is so severe that it undermines the foundation of the individual.
My daughter asked me one day what would happen if her mom and me stayed together. I said immediately and unequivocally that we all would have miserable lives. Without focusing on her mother, I told my daughter that since she was born, I have become a different person. I discovered that I didn’t want to live within the limitation or the confines of that particular marriage while being a father. There were things I wanted to do and explore in my new role that life 2.0 would not facilitate. Although I was fundamentally the same person, my worldview had changed with this major life stage. My partner for whatever reason and I became different people. It’s not as if I decided to walk away from it all. We went to see counsellors but none helped. I gave it my all but seeing no real progress, I decided to take a different path. No regrets. “Look around you,” I asked my daughter, “Are you more happy than sad? Sure, we lost our family unity, but what is worse is if we lose ourselves.”
You’re never going to be best friends with everyone, nor would you need to. In fact, you’re in high school. It’s entirely possible that you haven’t even met your best friend yet!
My daughter has witnessed the strife that I have with her aunts and uncles. My siblings and I have gone through a generation of relationship making and remaking. It’s hopeful to expect that with every year, we get wiser. But that’s just being hopeful. In reality, since the death of both parents, the family has not come together like before. Do I regret it? That’s probably the wrong word. It’s unfortunate that the sibling cannot be closer and that all our egos get in the way. Peacemaking is hard. It requires sacrifices. Compromises. If not today, then tomorrow. And more the next day. Continued accommodation can be exhausting. It chips away at my persona. I realized long ago that ultimately, others’ decisions are not in my control and their happiness is not my responsibility.
My daughter is young and all her experiences are drawn from her 14 years of socialization. She has good friends composed of boys and girls and her friend groups straddle races, religion and socio-economic categories. She’s had words with some and some with her. But on the whole, she’s coming out ahead. “You’re never going to be best friends with everyone, nor would you need to. In fact, you’re in high school. It’s entirely possible that you haven’t even met your best friend yet!”
Relationships are kind of like a lifelong poker game. You’ll discard some cards and take on a few to build what works for you. Similarly, you’ll make some friends and you’ll lose some; it’s not a failure of the person. In fact, it’s not important what cards you’re dealt; it’s what they mean to you and why you hang on to them that will give you a winning hand. She’s never played poker, but she understood the analogy. Then I said, “You’re not only playing one card game. You’re playing multiple hands at multiple tables. And you have more than five cards.” At the sound of that, her horizon just expanded and her mind exploded.
