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I’m no different from any other mother or father with a teenage child. Sometimes I worry about my daughter.
It’s not just thinking about her safety and navigating her upcoming first year of college that worries me. It’s not being concerned about my only child embracing a new circle of friends when she leaves home and hoping she will continue to make good choices with them that keeps me up at night. My fears are not just about her driving her car in another state without me close by that fills me with anxiety. I worry about her health, too.
My Recent Scare
Over the past few days, I didn’t think that my daughter was looking well physically.
I remarked that she has lost a lot of weight lately and expressed my concerns about her well-being. But she reminded me of two things that contributed to her smaller size. First of all, she wasn’t able to eat much because her wisdom teeth had been pulled a few months prior. She assured me that her appetite continues to remain light. And secondly, my daughter’s rigorous gymnastics training schedule had been significantly reduced because of an injury. As a result, she has lost some of her muscle mass which translates into lost pounds. My daughter has been adamant about the cause of her weight loss. So, I dismissed the issue of her weight in association with her not looking well.
But there has been more that has made me uneasy.
Despite telling me that she felt fine, my daughter had been looking extremely tired. As her mother, my responses were appropriate. I checked her temperature but it was normal. I also informed her that I would take her to get a medical examination very soon. Since my daughter does not take the vitamins that she should independently, I put them in her hands to ensure that she takes them. My concerns for my child became escalated because her eyes had been red a lot of the time. I believed she had been spending a lot of time crying. While she assured me that she hadn’t been, I persisted. I reminded my daughter that I would always be there to help her with any difficulty that she experienced.
Over the past few days, I have spent extra time talking with her to gauge how she has been doing physically and mentally. This included having check-in conversations with her when she awakened in the morning and more time with her in the evening before going to bed. As her mother, I just wanted to know that my daughter was okay.
But as I continued worrying about my daughter, something unexpected happened today that changed everything.
I Didn’t See This Coming
I looked forward to spending the entire day with my daughter and other members of our immediate family. And I think she was pleased to enjoy the day out of town as well.
As we were getting dressed for our outing, my daughter showed me the outfit that she chose to wear. When I looked at her she looked absolutely beautiful. My daughter no longer looked like she wasn’t feeling well and I was very happy about that. I gave her compliments about looking much better.
It was at that time that my daughter looked at me strangely and pointed to her eyelashes. She said
“I put them back on”.
It was funny and embarrassing at the same time when my daughter let me know what she had done. Several days ago she removed the false eyelashes that she had been wearing. My daughter told me that her eyes became very irritated when she took her eyelashes off several days before. So, she spent a lot of time rubbing them. That’s why her eyes had been red for days. And without her eyelashes on, from my perspective, she looked like she wasn’t feeling well.
My daughter could not believe that all my concerns about her well-being were connected to her removing her eyelashes without me realizing it. We have been laughing about this all day.
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Dr. Deborah M. Vereen is a retired Teacher and School Administrator. Her website is www.Drdeborahmvereen.com, and her YouTube Channel is Ignite Family Engagement with Dr. Deborah M. Vereen.
Copyright © 2024 Dr. Deborah M. Vereen. All rights reserved.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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