Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off . . .

 . . . and start all over again.

Swing Time is one of my favorite Astaire/Rogers movies.  When I was a teenager, I used to stay up late at night to catch them on UHF channels - way before you could collect these things on VHS tapes.  (When my parents were out of town, I also would listen to Edith Piaf torch songs and drink my folks Gallo jug wine until I would cry and imagine myself dying in a Paris gutter with my tragic heroine.) I was an eclectic soul.   In the above scene, Ginger is encouraging Fred not to give up, perseverance will win the day.

One of my children has been going through some pretty serious challenges.  Several failed romances, some serious career setbacks and a genetic predisposition to down one's sorrows in addictive behaviors left her teetering on an edge that was no longer acceptable to her mother.  I blew the whistle, called a time-out and really meant it this time.

Of my three kids, she's the most ambitious.  Her early life was all about ballet until chronic tendonitis ended that trajectory at age 12.  She moved onto music - playing the flute, and then conducting, setting some pretty high goals, and always achieving them.  She's traveled world as the head drum major for some of the biggest parades on this planet.  But all that glory has has all come to an end at the tender age of twenty-one.

Some of this was her own decision, some was out of her hands.  Some was bad luck, but much of it was the glass ceiling that roofed the old boys club.  Life can be pretty cruel.

Now she finds herself back home, under the care of a family doctor, a chiropractor, a therapist, a psychiatrist and her family.  She is fragile and we are keeping her close.

As I hoped, her overriding ambition is coming through. Although she has dropped out of school and is re-evaluating her career goals, she is returning to her former love of dance.  Despite a lingering headache from new medications and a stomach ache that doesn't go away, she's off to a beginning waltz class tonight.  "Mom, I may not be able go professional with ballet anymore, but I bet I can go a long way with ballroom."

That's my girl.  Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.

2 comments:

  1. It's so thrilling to watch our fledglings soar, so hard to watch them hit the ground, hard. Your beautiful daughter will recover - she has you as a model of resilience and creativity.

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  2. I couldn't have said it better than Rhonda just did.

    So true, with you as a mother, she will find her way and be that much stronger.

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