Well, it actually happened - the "teenager" graduated from COLLEGE. And I'm equal parts proud and depressed. I still remember my own college graduation and it seems like it wasn't long ago, until I do the math and realize it was 12 years ago. Ouchie. But let's focus on the good news here - I successfully put a kid through college. And, oh yeah, she successfully made it through college and got a degree. I guess she should be proud too.
Twas nearly a decade ago when the teenager, then actually a teenager, was dropped on my doorstep. Her mother had passed away when she was young and she hadn't had an easy go of it with her father in the years that followed. When her father and my cousin got together in high school, her parents were less than thrilled that this dude their daughter loved had a daughter of his own at such a young age. But it all kinda worked. He and his youngin became family, to the point where my aunt and uncle eventually adopted his younger brothers (one of these being the gay cousin, I swear I'm gonna do a chart here someday to show who's who in my family #Mexicans). My cousin was a stabilizing influence on the teenager, but once her dad and the cousin split, he spent more and more time away from the family, isolating the two of them. And he had trouble relating to his daughter, in a more severe way than most dads probably do. By the time she was 15, things hit a fever pitch and she regularly began running to me for help. Being on the fringes of the Dark Ages, all I could do was let her chill out for awhile and tell her things had to get better eventually. When they didn't, she came my way and begged to live with me. I thought, "Oh, hell no" initially, but when I realized how bad things were for her at home I had to seriously consider taking her in. G turned out to be the one to make the decision for me. I poured out my feelings to her and asked what I should do and all she said was, "There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're mean to be. It's easy.". Mind you, G already had nieces and nephews who were teenagers so her experience with such things far outweighed mine. But knowing she'd be there to help me navigate it all helped me decide that the teenager and I could probably make it to 18 without one of us dying. Couldn't be that difficult, right?
I didn't know it then, but taking in the teenager would turn out to be a lifelong commitment. I came to view her in the same light I view Miss N - she's one of my kids. Neither of us knew where we'd end up, we both assumed the arrangement would last a few years and that would be that. Anytime you have a kid, you're venturing into the unknown but it's a whole new ballgame when you inherit a teenager. At that time, she was just trying to make it to legal adulthood so she could do her own thing, had no eye for the future, no plans for what to do once she reached adulthood. And now she's a college graduate. That's pretty nifty. Even better than all that is she's grown up to be an amazing young woman (I feel too young to be using that term) who is smart, funny, empathetic and talented. We never could've imagined the journey would bring us to where we are now. I'm proud of her. And as G (who came to the festivities since it's all her fault anyway) pointed out, I should be proud of me for not mucking the whole thing up. I was a mess of a manwhore when the teenager and I got thrown together and it very easily could've turned out to be the worst situation ever. But we made it work. And now she can support me in my old age. Or probably not since college degrees don't get you much these days. But that's a battle for another time. Right now we bask in the awesomeness of having made it this far. Congrats, kid!
