When life was easy and fun!

So my 16 year old has been going through a whole pot load of adversity this semester and facing new and difficult challenges almost every day. I don't know how she's surviving, to be quite honest, because these are battles I can't fight for her.

Anyway, this morning I saw her slumped in the kitchen chair, barely eating her breakfast while watching her 9-year-old sister hop around the kitchen checking the lunch calendar and filling her backpack with her papers and rattling on-and-on about her upcoming Christmas program. As I passed by, I asked my struggling teenager, "Wouldn't it be nice to be in 4th grade again?"

She answered with a committed, "YES!" Then she drug herself up out of the chair to finish getting ready for school.

Before she left, I hugged her goodbye, her shoulders still drooped and her eyes tired and her soul defeated, I told her I loved her, said a silent prayer for her, and she managed to force a fake smile and say she loved me too. And then it was back to 9- year-old life as I drove my 4th grader to her elementary school.

We talked about her social studies test coming up, her spelling words and how many more days till Christmas. Then we made a deal about buying a toy if she gets all A's.

As I watched her jump out of the truck and bound into her school, I thought of all the things that I'm sure my 16-year-old would love to trade her for. Instead of having to study for a college Psychology final and finish a Chemistry presentation this week, I'm sure she'd much rather study for a spelling test with words like harmonica and bibliography on it or take a fill-in-the-blank Social Studies test about the plains of our state. I'm sure she'd rather be studying elementary English again and doing fractions in Math instead of killing herself to raise her grade in Algebra II and Trigonometry or trying to conjugate verbs in her Spanish II class.

Instead of dealing with ex-boyfriends and girl drama on a daily basis, I'm sure she'd much rather be like her little sister who thinks boys are still pretty disgusting and every girl is her best friend and the only "drama" is who gets to spend the night at who's house this Friday or who didn't get to sit by who at lunch yesterday. Or...instead of stressing about lost ball games and personal achievements, I'm positive she would trade her sister for some once a week fun practices with her friends and their dads.

Her little sister's biggest concern each day is how much iPad time she'll get and if any of her friends will want to ride bikes if it's nice out. Whereas, the poor teenager's concerns are so numerous and overwhelming, each one being legitimately important to the future of her academic or sports or social life.

How she probably longs for the past, when Christmas was about Santa coming and toys and sleeping in. But, now the holiday season is about finals, semester grades, tournaments and practices, and handling relationships. Thank goodness there's some presents and time with family to ease the pain!

We all want to grow up so fast when we're little but oh, how we long for the worries and joys of a 9-year-old instead, when life was easy and fun!