birthday memories...

My niece celebrates her fourteen birthday today. Fourteen. Not exactly a milestone birthday like sixteen or twenty-one, but still very important to the kid experiencing the big day. It's her last year before entering the semi-adult world of high school, still a kid in many ways yet old enough to think all adults are "clueless" (sorry, I'm too old to know what term the cool kids are using now instead of clueless). At fourteen you're still in that preparatory stage. Young enough to still have sleepovers and dance parties but not old enough to go unchaperoned.  It's that age where the innocence of youth is being tested, boundaries are fought, envelopes pushed. Parents are in a constant state of anger, depression, exasperation, frustration and guilt, all at once...sometimes they are even medicated.


Fourteen is a awkward age, one that won't hold much appeal when she looks back as an adult. I doubt she'll say it was the best time of her life. Usually you laugh about how little you really knew as opposed to what you thought you knew. It is a time when you can't wait to get on with your life because you have no idea how difficult it's really going to be.  You've probably already had your heart broken by your first love or you're about to. Your body is betraying you, changing and morphing into something completely foreign. Fitting in, avoiding peer pressure and dodging bullies consumes your day. It probably similar to a caterpillar emerging from the cocoon to become a beautiful butterfly but it wings aren't spread yet so it's still a slime covered insect trying to avoid being eaten. Awkward, painful, pain-filled and misunderstood....


I wonder if my niece is enjoying this time of her life or trying to get through it unscathed? She an enigma, hard to read. She's seen so much that most humans will go to their graves never experiencing, all bad unfortunately, but she plays her cards pretty close to the vest. By the time I was fourteen, I was really coming into my own. I had a quick wit and cutting sarcasm, both which I used to protect myself from exposing too much to most people. My niece doesn't have that. Her schtick has always been the airhead, a little flighty and oblivious, but that's gone now. Enduring her mother's death eighteen months ago and nearly complete disappearance of her drug-addicted father must have left her feeling lost. She's been blessed with the opportunity to live with the older sister she always adored, but even that relationship has changed. Her cool older sister has been forced to become the strict, rule-making mother-figure...a change that's been difficult for both of them. Actually there isn't much in her life that hasn't changed and even though she seems to quietly go with the flow, I suspect there's turmoil under the surface of her calm exterior.


I wish I knew what's going on inside her. I wish I could promise it will get easier. I wish I could wave a magic wand and change her life completely. But I can't, so today, all I can do is wish her a happy birthday. It's not nearly enough but at least it's something....