Seems to Never End

I'm sure that before very long all of you will get sick of me griping about my daughter, but honestly, I have to put it somewhere & confronting her with everything is never a good idea, especially not for the whole family well-being thing. So I keep my mouth shut & write about it when I can put words to what I'm feeling.

There is good news to talk about for a change, along with my usual ranting & raving. She was approved for Utah Vocational Rehabilitation, so she'll be able to go to school, learn a trade & they'll help her find a job, too. We're all pretty excited for her & can hardly wait for her to be able to get started & get everything going in a forward direction again. She's living with a friend of hers and her family & seems to be happier & doing a lot better emotionally, I really hope that it lasts longer this time than it has in the past. I'd love to see her gain some more confidence in herself & start realizing that she's great with or without a love match, and that she can make it on her own & be happy doing it.

About a week or so ago, she asked me if she could "borrow" some money so that she could buy her boyfriend a nice Valentine's gift. I told her the truth, which is we don't have any extra money for that sort of thing right now. We'll be trying to pay our taxes soon & we have Troy's hospital bill to pay off, too. I also feel like it's her responsibility to handle getting gifts for the guys she gets involved with, not mine. I haven't bought a Valentine's gift for a man since I was in high school, because since then I've learned what a man really wants for pretty much any gift-giving occasion & the gift wrapping is usually sexy lingerie & not a gift bag. I told her that, but she really didn't want to believe it & was only interested in buying something.

She started complaining last night that some money she had hoped to get didn't happen & that she wasn't going to be able to get him anything at all for Valentine's now, and it felt like she was hoping I'd step up & offer her some, but of course, I still don't have any extra & he still isn't my boyfriend, so I offered her a couple of other suggestions, which she didn't like & so she stopped texting me about it. I really hope that one day she'll learn that the best gifts are from the heart & not the store & that any man worthy of her will believe the same thing. Troy & I do more nice things for each other than we give actual gifts & we always have. We started our marriage with very little money & two kids to raise, so we learned to show our love in ways that didn't involve money. She has no money, so she needs to learn that pretty quick, in my opinion.

I try not to butt in, and I don't say much about it, but I do hope she figures it out.