30+ DRC 218

New Years has come and gone.

Happy 2013.

It's been an eventful week, I'll tell you. I've had a pretty emotional and stressful week. Family drama and having to be a responsible "dad" can be heart-wrenching and stressful. But in the end, things were looked at with a clear eye and my decision to be blunt has made a bit of a turnaround in attitude.

Over the past few years, the daughter has been heavy into the social media Beginning with MySpace in junior high, going to Facebook and lately with Twitter. Before MySpace, she had a lot of friends. She eventually began to get surly and have a lot of problems at school. Of course, being oblivious to social media, we didn't make the connection. We did notice the drop off in friends visiting or her heading out to go to friends houses. It was about the time she started dating as well so I thought I might have something to do with that.

She still had friends, though. And during the summer, she made more and hung out more often with them. She left MS and began using FB. The surliness would come and go and I contributed it to teenage issues. When she began high school, she tried out for cheer and was a shoo in because of all her experience with a championship Youth Football league cheer squad. Her squad won the nationals two years in a row.

During this time, she could only be on social media sites with her laptop at home. She had an internet capable phone, but it was a bit clumsy to work with and she always had problems with it. Some cheap Android phone from Metro PCS. She was dealing with freshman issues, but still having problems socializing and making enemies. Still no connection made to social media.

It made no sense to me at the time, though. When she met new people, they loved her.

Sometime during late spring, she got a new iPhone. She was so in love with it, but still working out the in's and out's.

During the summer she got real serious with a new boyfriend and was hardly on FB. This year was her sophomore year which she began with a positive attitude. She was asked to coach a group of 9 to 10 year old cheerleaders for her former youth cheer squad and had it all planned out. Calendars, notebooks, cheers, choreography . . .  everything you want a coach to prepare before the season begins. Her advisors LOVED her. She is a go-getter.

But she had a problem with her co-coach. There were attitude issues stemming from some argument that I later found out began with an FB post . . .

She also began to have problems with her high school cheer squad. Boyfriend issues also began. Eventually everything broke down for her. She broke up with the boyfriend (several times), her grades started hurting, and she quit cheer.

Her quitting cheer really hurt me. She has been cheering since she was seven years old. She ate, lived and breathed cheer! It was her one passion and it was going away.

All because of Twitter.

She quit using FB because of too much drama coming from it. That was before the decision to quit cheer, in fact. At least a couple of months prior. She hadn't been happy. She wasn't comfortable with the squad any more. She had been bullied, and then they stopped with her and they began with another member. I understand that she quit, too.

I don't know when she began using Twitter, but it must have been in the summer. She didn't have many followers (relatively speaking for a teen girl). But when I finally connected the dot (about a week ago) she had only about 200 followers. Her friends had been over to spend the night and make some goofy YouTube video and she was on a mission to break 300. Once the video was out and had been posted on Twitter, she began racking up the followers.

But she also began getting that look in her eye when she was having a flame-war. As anyone used to posting comments anywhere, you see the troll reaching for attention. My guess is the daughter is one such troll. She can't help it. Her mom's the same way.

That weekend the video came out, she actually broke 400 followers. But she wasn't happy. She was in such a foul mood, I didn't understand it. Nothing I did would break her out of that funk. As it is, she hardly wants anything to do with me. Again, I blame the teen girl, angst thing.

But the day after New Years we had a quiet day at the lab and I had a lot of time to think and piece things together. I wrote her a long letter explaining my conclusions as to why she should chill with the social media addiction.

That's what it had become. An addiction. I don't know why I didn't see it before. But the more I looked back on what was going on, the more I realized that she was always on.

On her iPhone
On her laptop.
On her friends phone or laptop.

It was nonstop with her. Texting, commenting, grunting an answer to a spoken question.

I got a text about an hour later saying that she wanted to go with her mom to Yuma. My heart dropped.

I got a text from her mom telling me she got a call from the daughter crying. She wasn't upset at me, she just wanted an explanation. I told her. She agreed with my conclusion. She told me she'd get over it.

I still felt like shit. I tried to explain to her why I did it. Seeing all the problems that came from it, the tears she shed . . . just seeing her in pain!

Her response: "Thx for telling me I don't have friends"

That's what she took from it. I told her she has her close friends, but not like she used to. I told her not to twist my words around. I don't know why, but I felt I had totally fucked up. That I should have left well enough alone. I told her I was just trying to help. That at times, I felt like my limbs were bound and I was in this freakin' cold and deep pool and I didn't know how to get out of it.

That I was trying my best to show her mom that I was strong enough for this whole helping to raise a teenager business, but it was really hard to put on brave face in all this drama! I was trying to learn, but that the she wasn't talking to me to try to help her.

I didn't hear from her the rest of the day. That whole event was before noon.

I was sort of on auto-pilot doing what I had to do. But I was still totally distraught over what I had done. I had been too brutally honest with her.

Luckily for me her best friend had been with her.

They must have discussed what I wrote. Must have broken it down and finally interpreted it to why I had sent it to her. When I got home, I actually hesitated opening the front door. I could hear them laughing and listening to music. This sounds cheesy as fuck, but I didn't want it to end.

I opened the door and we just looked at each other. We were both a bit uncomfortable and I made some small talk. I eventually was able to get her alone and ask her if we were good. She said she already forgot about it. I looked her in the eye and told her, "That's just it. I don't want you to forget about it. I need you to think about it. Hard!"

She said ok, and I hugged her. She hugged me back. I love you's were said and a slight burden was lifted.

The most of the heaviness I felt was lifted this weekend when she actually hung out with me for most of it. I hadn't seen her this happy and positive in a long time. She also wasn't glued to her damn phone either. She was still on it, just not like she used to. I think she was texting, not Twittering.

I hope this keeps up.

As far as my running is concerned. I don't really want to talk about it. The streak's still on, it's just been a very uncomfortable few weeks with the bum knee and all. I don't really think I'm aggravating it. But because I have to wear the boots at work all the time now, I think the knee is going to be an issue for a while. Hopefully wearing them loose instead of all cinched up will help. The achiness has dulled a bit, but it's still there at the beginning of the run. It may eventually go away.

GD

too drained to check. run smiley.