#256

Megan is sweet as pie. Except for when she isn't. Naturally, I prefer the former. It's frustrating when her sweetness is fleeting or elusive or, frankly, like unicorns or dragons. Or maybe "aliens or dinosaurs" is better there. Because aliens might exist, right? And dinosaurs did? That is way off-topic. Anyway, Sweet-Meg isn't rare, but neither is her crabby opposite. She's predictable though, so I'm happy about that. Silver linings. I know when Megan's gonna grumble. Will things be less predictable when she's a teenager? Yes. Like death and taxes I'm told. "Brace yourself," I hear. The worlds and minds of females deepen. Not so with boys, of which I speak as an insider, but young women evolve and complicate. A sophistication begins its unfurling, and with it a new phase of serious, powerful emotion. Very powerful, they say. Shit. So if I fancied myself, before, a kind of meteorologist for Megan's moods, now I shouldn't kid myself. I know nothing. What I think I know is as tenuous and unreliable as what passes for fact in mass media today. With a teenage daughter, storms can appear and flatten everything without warning. That sounds dramatic. Maybe the 'storms' will just flatten my best efforts and intentions to be a good father. I trust Megan. She's a girl, yes, but girls are sugar and spice and everything nice. Sure. Megan is spice alright, and very saucy too. But Megan, I don't really need the unsweet to know its opposite. Okay? 

Megan, you are a tough cookie, but through ten years now, I think we're in a pretty good place. I hope you agree. Your teachers agree. As do others I interrogate about you.  

Yet again, staring at her, I was struck by something: Megan's eyelashes are marvelous. They are long and perfect. And so it occurred to me that my daughter has my lashes but not my amenability. Perhaps, in the end, that's a better choice, Megan, between those two. But remember that niceness isn't weakness. In fact, it could be rudeness that is precisely weakness, or as I read somewhere: "Rudeness is a weak person's imitation of strength."