Teenager VS. Free Spirit:

Teenagers is a very misleading term. What comes to mind when you say teenager? Selfish, stubborn, attitude, rebelliousness, etc. So what’s misleading about the word teenager? Well, that teenagehood (is that even a word?) doesn’t start until thirTEEN and it ends at nineTEEN. I’ve only heard that the decent human being inside of your child may not come back to you until they’re 20, but I certainly know that teenagehood begins BEFORE thirTEEN. It’s like morning sickness – since when was pregnancy sickness confined to the morning. Maybe it was one of the 5% of women who came up with that term. I got to see glimpses of the teenager inside her when Tailor was 11. The sudden, out of the air, random screaming. But this 12 year old who occupies the body of my daughter is, most definitely, a teenager.
Now, for my free spirit. Yesterday was the last day for the girls on the ski team. Sabrina has been on the “developmental” team. It’s for the new skiers. Once they can go down the hill and around the flags confidently, they get put on a racing team. Sabrina has been excited to be drafted onto her sisters’ racing team. The ski lodge set up our course on the racing hill as well as one other set of flags. When it was Sabrina’s turn, her and a friend went down on our course. After going around some of the flags, it seemed as though the two girls were switching places. Then, no, the other girl kept going around her poles like she was supposed to. It looked like Sabrina was either going to the other flags or that she was going to run right into the rope that sectioned off the course. Maybe even go through it and into a tree. Instead, she straightened out and went straight down the hill. Forget about weaving around all the poles. The quickest way from point A and point B is a straight line, right? We all laughed so hard I had to wipe the tears off my face. I caught up to her when everything was done and asked her what happened. She said, “I WON!” Guess she’ll be on that developmental team again next year.