Letter to my daughter, 19

14 January 2008, Monday

I started this post because today, my daughter and I decided to kill one another. Before anyone gets all excited and start to reporting me, it's not kill as in Bill. This is a figurative speech to announce the most difficult time of the mother-daughter relationship.

She is 19. Neverbeenkissed has now kissed, had sex, had 2 boyfriends, been dumped by one, given an ipod by the other, and just 2 minutes ago, she chucked her laptop into the rubbish bin. I must say the Thinkpad is a very hardy machine. The bin thing was only a last resort. She wanted to smash it to bits but failing only to dislodge the "e" key after several hurlings, she thought the bin was the next best dramatic thing to do. I was glad because I thought she was going to hurl it at me.

We didnt fight - there had bee silence for a couple of hours. She was quietly reading, Series of Unfortunate Events, a book she received like half a decade ago. The pages were still stuck from years under piles of other unread books.

In the morning, we had a fight because she burnt the toast. 10 years of making toasts and she still burns it. She had been gone 2 days and was really pissed off with me when I messaged her boyfriend, the ipod guy. I only did this because her phone was unresponsive. And I know it's not a thing to do but I had the intention of embarrassing her because she didn't keep her promise. It has always been that way. Totally ignorant of her responsibilities.

Now she has finished school. She is not sure what she wants to do. She is supposed to get some letters into college. She didn't get any. Normally by this time of the night, she'd be on the phone. It's been silent.

She says "you and I don't talk". It's true. I stopped communicating with her years ago because I find her too pig headed. Maybe because I don't like her. Do I not like my daughter? Where have I gone wrong?

(to be continued)