I know -- it's mid-September. While most people celebrate their 'new year' in the middle of winter, and others according to religious or cultural calendars, I celebrate the new school year. Standing in a freezing, intoxicated mass of humanity in Times Square never appealed to me, but the smell of new 'school shoes', the sheen of a fresh notebook, the gentle crack of a textbook opened for the first time...that, for me, is the sound of celebration and renewal. I always loved school as a child, and with only one other girl close to my age in my neighborhood, summers were quiet, family affairs. I would laze and lounge, read and draw, tour the town on my bike in random patterns. I celebrated my birthday in July, a month when my family would often go on vacation to the Jersey Shore or the coast of Maine, and I greedily drank every drop of mid-summer nourishment. In August, the anticipation would build, and I would wait (patiently, for the most part), for the day my
No matter what your relationship is with your young adult child, conversations about complicated or sensitive topics are wild cards. The relationship I enjoy with my 19-year-old is blessedly close, and we talk daily about all manner of subjects. We see eye-to-eye on most of life's "big issues," but we also give each other the space for different perspectives and learn from each other constantly. (Well, at least I know I learn from her; I would leave it to her to comment on how much she actually learns from me...) Despite our closeness, though, or perhaps because of it, some conversations are fraught with emotion and tension. I find myself dancing around the issue, sending little messages in what I believe to be supportive bottles, opening doors and windows to invite her in. In my lesser moments, I push too hard, frustrated by her resistance or my own need to push forward -- issue to conversation to plan to resolution -- and almost invariably find myself with one of