This year has been really nice so far with regard to Kate. She has been responsible with her schoolwork (we haven't had to help her with math ONCE, and she's turning in her work and earning a solid "B" without our constant nagging), she has been kinder to her siblings, she has been doing her chores without incident...

I let myself think, just a little bit, that she's *growing up*... And maybe she is, but I still am a bit cynical about it all. Life with her is a roller coaster, and when things are going well, we just generally coast along and enjoy the ride, but we're always anticipating the next corkscrew followed by being stuck upside down for 3 hours while a crew comes in to fix a broken part of the track.

So last night, she received a phone call from one of her *best* friends who was hanging out with Kate's *x-boyfriend*. This one call totally demolished her. She came upstairs sobbing, a total mess. She wouldn't say why. We know the phone conversation didn't last more than 1 minute. She claims that she just was upset to hear from this boy again. She thought she was *over him*...

I know there's more to the story. There has to be, but she won't tell us. She will only tell her one friend, and she was absolutely frantic to be able to call her... And her friend was gone to see a slasher movie last night.

Sometimes we can't fix everything. Sometimes as her mom I won't *get* what the big deal is.

I'm angry that this boy popped up again. We don't want him anywhere near Kate. He already has dabbled with drugs at age 14. He's just not a good influence.

I'm upset with this *friend* who knew exactly what she was doing when she called Kate to say *guess who I am hanging out with?*... I'm angry because Kate spent an entire week shielding this same friend from petty comments and hurtful actions of other girls on the recent NYC field trip.

I'm angry because Kate was in such a good place before this little incident.

I'm worried that she might start cutting again to *deal with the pain*.

I'm sad that I can't transport her 10 years into the future so that she can have more perspective on this and other dramas. That the actions of a boy she used to go out with shouldn't define her world. Shouldn't cause her such grief. Shouldn't dissolve her into a sobbing mess...

So, we're stuck inverted on the roller coaster right now. I'm waiting for her to get up so that I can gauge the damage that was done by that 1-minute conversation. Sigh... Teenage angst, indeed.