Part 13 of the Remembering Montana series reflecting on the three weeks my family got to ranch sit for 3 horses, 2 donkeys, and 2 rescue dogs in the Bitterroot Valley. Most of these are slightly adapted social media posts that I shared while we were in Montana. Others are more recently written.
I broke this slightly adapted social media post into two parts to keep it consistent with the typical length of my entries. Come back tomorrow for the rest of the story. 😉
Day 15, October 4, 2018:
“I love this SO much!” She says for the umpteenth time.
It all started on Day 5. The girl and I had driven into town to engage in what has become one of our signature shared activities: thrifting.
I’m pretty proud of the progress I’ve made at avoiding arguments with my teenage girl by quickly noticing when she’s being reactive and not getting sucked into that reactivity myself. I’m practicing digging for the emotion that is causing her tone, then excavating even further to discover the need she’s seeking to meet through her behavior. It’s tricky with her. She is 14 after all and driven to individuate, so there have been times when I think the mood and tone are purely to agitate discord. She’s also savvy and usually on to me if my tactics lack sophistication.
This afternoon presents a situation with her that is provoking in me my own need to be seen and appreciated. I feel myself getting triggered, finding it extremely difficult to maintain a calm presence, so I alert her to this then fall quiet. We leave Missoula in silence, though she’s plugged into a podcast, while I’m processing my failure to find connection.
Half an hour later, we’ve arrive at the gate to the property, and she’s about to leave the car to open it, when I suddenly get the inspiration that will dissipate the negativity. I say, “you want to drive us in?”
“What?!” She responds in utter disbelief. She’s never been in the driver’s seat of a real car but she’s been obsessing about it lately, reminding us often that she’s almost of the age to get her permit.
This invitation makes her absolutely giddy, and after I open the gate, I give my oldest child her first driving lesson, and she moves the 2-ton machine a whole 20 feet. She’s over the moon and then proceeds to apologize for how she treated me in town, even articulately explaining the complex emotions that were driving her behavior with some embarrassment but knowing I’m not going to chastise or shame her. Success!
We’ll come back to the day at hand and why I recall the driving lessons on this particular day in Driving Lessons part two.
Restoring Justis 