And should you ever see this familiar sadness on your daughters’ faces? You can hold them, if they’ll let you; you can tell them you love them; you can tell them you understand. It’s all any of us can do, isn’t it?

Perhaps that is just the human condition. Kind of a sad state to find humanity in, but I suppose if that’s our lot, then we adapt to it.

That look though, the one in the picture, the one you watch for in your daughters? I’ve seen it in mine. I asked my husband if he saw it too. He didn’t see it. She was smiling but it was there. He thought maybe I saw tired. He thinks I shouldn’t ask her about how she was feeling because I’m putting the idea into her head that she was sad. I need to know if she was so I can try to make it better. As if.

I’ve swum in those waters you so often find yourself in these days, and I know how hard it can be sometimes to keep your head above the surface. It’s something I continually struggle with, and I admire fiercely both your ability to keep yourself afloat and your willingness to write about your struggles with it: it helps keep the rest of us swimming too, believe me, and I think maybe you can’t hear that enough.

On a lighter note, you really need to go listen to Susan Werner’s song “Misery & Happiness”–I think her stuff would really speak to you, but that song in particular always makes me think of you. I tried and tried to find it online but couldn’t–I’ll see if I can liberate a copy to send to you if you don’t already have it.

I understand your fear of seeing that look in your daughter’s eyes, and I hope I never see it in my daughter, even as my mother hoped she never would in me. But we’re stronger swimmers for having made the journey, so maybe we’ll be better lifejackets for them.

As a mama who has seen it in her daughter and is still in the pain of watching her struggle it is awful, as awful as you imagine. AND I am here and whole and so is she. She is finding her own way and I am trusting in the Universe that she is the way she is as I am the way I am b/c this is our journey and b/c you have felt it you can offer her your unique comfort of the shared experience.
It matters because it is…

And can I just say I love Dawn in the comment above…she said it so so beautiully, didn’t she?

We are wise beyond years from the very beginning.

We look at our daughters and worry – but we already know. We are not women who were built for the easy, the simple.

No. We are the women who muddle into the complex, the murky, the messy.

And on good days, good weeks, good months – that is all right. We have the energy, the humor, the strength to know that these things happen, it will pass, we will persevere.

But on the bad days? The bad year? It feels beyond draining. It feels bottomless and you watch the ink bleed into every thing else in your life.

Jenn, my love – the world needs you – needs me – needs our daughters for how else would they know about this duality and the rich, breathtakingly beautiful and terrifying tapestry we weave?

My 8 year old self would have offered your 8 year old self some Pez. Cause it can’t hurt.