How many eldest daughters do we have in this chat? I’m guessing quite a few. I’m one! Like attracts like and all that. But parenting an eldest daughter as an eldest daughter myself has been a wild ride—one that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately as she celebrated her eleventh (WHAT?!) birthday last week.

And if you’re not here for my musings on parenthood and you’re a paid subscriber, jump down to the updates section for a little art preview for Not on the Same Page. But first…

I am sitting in my public library, waiting for said eldest daughter to get out of theater practice and trying to get some work done. It’s 6:32 PM, and I am proud of myself for not bringing coffee with me. I thought about it, though. I really did.

I do, however, have pumpkin spice black tea. So, you know…I may have still ruined my sleep.

I am still fundraising for Feeding America as part of Writers Against Hunger! If you have some extra cash on hand, please consider donating here. Every dollar donated provides at least ten meals for those in need, and this time of year is especially difficult. Your money goes a long way! As of the writing of this newsletter, I’ve written 16,029 words on Not on the Same Page which comes out to $32.06. So…you know…far under my 50k/$100 goal. But let’s be real. I’m donating $100 anyway, and I’ll finish this book no matter what. We always knew November was going to be hard.

I honestly don’t think I fully realized how cool my daughter was until she turned eleven last week. I thought of her in myriad other positive ways—amazing, wonderful, funny, special, weird (in the best way), or a whole host of other shining adjectives. She was all of those things. “Cool” just wasn’t the word.

Raising my daughter has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. And that isn’t entirely because I’m a raging feminist and I am extremely mindful about how I talk to her and about her, about how the world will break her down and how I can build her up before (and after) that happens. (I am this way about my son, too, but I know this world is harder on girls than it is on boys. I’ve lived it. And from one eldest daughter to another, I want to heal some of the “eldest daughter” tendencies in myself to make her life easier. You know the ones. Wanting to take care of everyone. Wanting to make everyone happy. People-pleasing. Taking up the least amount of space possible. These things are not necessarily a product of being the eldest daughter—my mother certainly didn’t instill these traits in me—but they have been assigned to us by a society intent on creating likable women. The kind who smile when told to do so and never, ever make waves. But I digress.)

But it wasn’t only that. It was parenting her as a four-year-old while we lost her sister. She was old enough to know we were having a baby, old enough to know she was a girl and to know her name. So, in my grief, I had to guide her through hers, as well. I had to carry on because of her. In may ways, she saved me, though it was never her responsibility to do so.

She missed most of kindergarten because of COVID. She did online school with her peers, but she was so social that she definitely suffered for it. My quirky, noisy kid needed a quirky, noisy classroom full of other quirky, noisy kids. And not only that, we had a newborn baby at the time who required a lot of attention. But I remember thinking that she was so resilient. Whatever we threw at her, she took on with a smile and found the bright side. That was an exhausting time, but I was so proud of her. Proud of me, too. I had moved from a loss to another pregnancy to COVID, and I was doing okay.

All of a sudden, she was in third grade, fourth grade, now fifth. She’s over five feet tall. (Yes, seriously.) There’s something about being able to look your kid in the eyes that makes you take stock of whether or not you deserve the privilege. I think I do. I think I’ve done a good job with her. I think I’ve been able to heal some of her world enough that she knows she has a soft place to land when it breaks her down.

And now, she’s just such a cool kid. She does improv and theater and dance. She talks about these things in technical terms, and she takes it seriously like a professional. When she’s on stage, she lights up. She might not know exactly who she is yet, but she’s closest to it when she’s performing.

She has goals. And friends. She hangs Pride flags on her walls and will defend trans kids with fervor. She wears all black…except today she had on a red sweater. I told her she looked great. She said, “I know.” And my heart swelled because she didn’t need me to tell her that—she had her own cool confidence.

More and more, I keep thinking to myself, Wow. She’s such a cool kid.

She won’t hug me. She hates it. She’s “too cool” for it. But then again, she always has been. When she was a newborn, she was happiest when no one was touching her. People didn’t believe me until they tried to pick her up. She let them know. I was proud then, and I’m proud now. (But I still hug her at every drop-off. Someday, she’ll understand why.)

On her birthday, I told her it was my birthday, too. She rolled her eyes (there is a lot of eye-rolling lately), but it was true. I was reborn the day she came into the world. I’ve never been the same. There is a time before she was here, and a time after. In a million ways, I am better for her presence. In absolutely no way am I worse. We’ve grown up together. We’ve changed and learned and built a life. That’s really cool, too.

I don’t write my books for her. Not even in a hypothetical, “I do everything for my kids” kind of way. I write them for me. But I write books I’d be proud to have her read one day—ones that feature consent and body positivity and a more loving, tolerant world. I think someday she’ll tell her friends I’m an author, which would be…well…cool. Maybe someday she’ll be as proud of me for doing this thing as I am of her for everything she does.

Maybe someday, she’ll think I’m cool, too.

I am over 50k words into Not on the Same Page!! This is a huge milestone that I am so excited to reach. I am so proud of this book, especially given how sick I was. Here’s to the next 50k!

The event at The Well Red Damsel was amazing! If you missed out on grabbing a signed copy from me, my shop is open.

And now…the first look at artwork of Casey and Trina for paid subscribers. Who’s excited???

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