Today was the day that the drama of my teenage lovelies life unfolded in court. We were there to make a temporary restraining order permanent on one of her former friends. This also involved my former friend who is this girls guardian. Our friendship of 20 years came to a dramatic end last year when her daughter and her daughters friend caused such distress for my child that she confronted friends daughter in what appeared to others as an out of the blue verbal assault. What they did not know was that this anger my child had was brewing for weeks over the fact that, these two girls her friends at the time felt she was being unloyal to them and spreading gossip and rumors to others. In particular to their enemy, a girl who was vying for the attention of friends daughters boyfriend. What a convoluted teenage drama, mean girls, the stuff movies are made of. The fallout from that confrontation led to one of the girls threatening my daughter and eventually harrassing her on several occassions. To know my middle lovelie is to know that she is a very loyal and trustworthy person. She would never intentionally hurt someone. So when it came to pass that she became the object of revenge she thought her life was ruined, and nothing I could tell her was going to make her feel better.
I told her when she became severely depressed because of the situation that if she needed to get a restraining order to give her peace of mind that I would do so. After the last confrontation I did file one and it was in court that I saw my former friend and her daughters. I felt that they had played the victim on several occassions and I was not going to let them get away with it. In court they disputed it, I was dumbfounded and thought why? We no longer wanted to have anything to do with them. I resigned myself to the fact that my 20 year friendship aside I would do what was best for my child. Isn't that what a good Mother does?
So the case was continued until today and I had subpoened a principal and gotten several important documents to support the need for an order. So when the judge called us up after some formalities he offered that we might have a resolution to salvage a friendship that was so old. That in the course of life things happen and that we need to see the bigger picture. That wasn't it possible the young woman who hurt my daughter had acted on impulse and out of concern for her friend, my friends daughter. He did agree that these teenage dramas can turn into tragedies and he agreed that when a childs mental health is concerned it is an urgent issue. I missed my friend and our love/ hate relationship but I wanted this to be my daughters choice. I saw tears come to her eyes as she told the judge that she would be willing to "dissolve the order and stuff", it was not so eloquent, her wording, but it was heartfelt. The girls had said they missed her friendship and the one that threatened her admitted she should have listened to her principal who was there as our witness, and not gotten involved in defending her "sister". She apologized to my daughter, and they hugged after court and made up. I think that everyone learned a valuable lesson today. At least I hope they did. Friendship is a very hard thing to come by, and I choose to have only a small circle of friends. But its nice to know that damaged friendships can be repaired and that the sum of our experiences can in time help people grow and change.
If anything I wanted my daughter to know that she is the world to me, she is so mature and smart beyond her fifteen years. I just don't understand where she gets it from?
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