Please Don't Answer Honestly.

  I screwed up big time last night.    I did something that my daughter will hopefully forget but that she will likely remember for a long time.  I wish I could undo it but since life doesn't have a delete button, I am just having to apologize, feel guilty and move on, eventually.  

     At 9:30 at night, Beloved Child came to me and said "Do you want to hear my essay?".  Of course I said "yes".   She began to read it to me and from the beginning I knew I was not going to love it.  I tried to stay quiet and listen all the way through.   It was cliche and had nothing in it that offered a window into why the reader should care about what she was saying.  I pointed out a glaring error and one word that was not a word and let her finish.   She asked "What do you think?" and I said (cue doomsday music) "I hate it. There is nothing in it that tells me about you or why you care about this issue."    Her eyes teared up.   She didn't know what to say.  I didn't know what to say.  I felt like garbage and realized that even when asked for my opinion, I should not give it in this context.  Writing does not come easily for her.  She can tell a story, but if asked to write one, she chokes.  She waits until there is a deadline and leaves little time for revision.  I am a jerk.    She will remember this until she dies and tell her children and grandchildren what I said to her when she was 18.

   I apologized verbally.  I told her I love her.  I wrote her a note telling her that I felt like a jerk and that I was sorry and if given another opportunity to read what she writes, I will do it differently.  I shoveled her car out from the snow this morning.  Neither of us mentioned the essay.  She left with a half hearted "goodbye" to go to school.  

     My tummy hurts.  My heart hurts.   I screwed up.   It is 7:56 a.m. and I am still feeling badly.  She may forgive, but won't likely forget.  Me either.