Fly away little bird

Teenagers are kind of funny how they move through adolescence.  It’s really in ‘fits and starts’ and sometimes they can seem to struggle forever and then all of a sudden they make huge leaps forward before stepping back a bit again.  Then one day you notice that they’re much less “angsty” than they were and you can have a normal conversation with them and then ‘poof’ it’s like they’re grown up.

Buddy-child has had a tough childhood and adolescence.  She has moved from one place to another due to many things outside of her control.  She hit adolescence already behind her peers.  She was behind developmentally as a child due to issues with how and where she was raised initially and then didn’t have the opportunity to go through a normal adolescent development path until after she moved in.  She’s done a great job catching up.  Graduating in itself was a great feat considering she had originally figured she wouldn’t make it in the same year as her classmates and would need an extra year.  Still, there were a couple of things she just struggled with because they represented the last little bits of having to grow up.  One centers around getting a job and the other is getting her licence.  As long as she’s not working or driving, she can still hang onto childhood and adolescence.  Those are really the last two steps she needs to make before she looks at her own apartment and becoming a full-fledged adult.  Some kids really struggle with that last step and for buddy it’s a huge step.  She has needed the opportunity to be a ‘normal’ teenager so that she could finish growing up and become an adult when she was ready.

I picked up buddy from her friend’s house last week and she pulls out her brand new G1 licence and wants to know when we can go driving.  She was so excited to surprise me with it!  She’s signed up for her smart-serve so that she can go and get a job as well.  I guess she’s finally ready to make those last few steps to move on.