Jack and the magic beans

Step-daughter and I went out for a coffee date today.  She had texted me recently to say she wanted to weigh some pros and cons on a decision she was making so we set a date.  We haven’t been in contact much because her phone has been cut off.  I guess she hasn’t paid it for about three months and owes money she hasn’t been able to afford.  She only just got it not that long ago and this was her first attempt at managing her own account and her own bills.  She’s never done that before.  A bit of a steep learning curve.

Tonight I picked up a scared little kid.  It’s just so heart-breaking sometimes.

Step-daughter has come to the realization that she needs to move out and is going to move in with her dad for a little bit in an attempt to save some money and maybe straighten her head out some before she tries again.  She’s been not bothering to go to work, not bothering to pay her bills, and not bothering to work on any school work so that she can eventually get her grade 12 and go to post-secondary education.  It’s catching up to her and now she’s a nervous wreck and realizes she needs to get out.  If you’ll recall, she ran to her mom’s from my place and then ran to rent a room at a drug-addicted friend’s apartment from her mom’s.

There are a couple of things about step-daughter’s situation that are important but it’s too many to put in one post so we’ll start with this one.  Step-daughter has developed this bad habit shall we say, of finding the ‘magic bean’ and seeing that as the solution to all of her problems.  She was flunking out of school – her solution was that all she needed to do was clean her room and somehow that would magically make her do well in school because it would make her organized and responsible and she would magically do her homework.  Having problems living at her mom’s, all she needed to do was move into this apartment with her friend and she would magically save money, finish high school, get all kinds of cool things, have friends, be popular…  These are two examples but there have been many.  The problem is that while the solution in itself is not necessarily a bad one, it’s not going to work if she is not prepared to do the actual work parts that go with it.  You want to finish school, yes you probably should clean your room, get your stuff organized and give yourself a space to do school work but it won’t magically happen if you don’t actually study too.

I call it the Jack and the magic bean stalk solution to life.  You just trade your current life for the magic beans, throw them on the ground and close your eyes and poof, all kinds of things will just happen.

For the first time, step-daughter came to the realization herself that she was doing this when she was listening to herself talk.  That is a huge step.  Unfortunately, she is completely at a loss about what to do about some key things she should be doing but at least it’s a step in the right direction.  Needless to say, I’m all for her moving into her dad’s.  He works days, she works midnights, they’ll hardly see each other but that will work for those two.

As of today, she hadn’t smoked dope for 10 days.  That is a record for her.  I hope she manages to get her stuff moved into her dad’s before she falls off the wagon again.