9 is a really hard year.... Part 2

When I was nine, my mom walked into my room and I was crying on my bed.  It was after school and it was the day I realized no one liked me.  At that point, it was the worst day of my life.  My mom made me tea, sat with me while I cried and explained in a succinct way that sums up how practical my mom is, "Paish, I'm sorry.  9 is a really hard year."

Somehow after a little bit of care, being listened to, her telling me the other kids were wrong and after this life-changing advice, I felt better.  I went to school.  I still had no friends.  I was an oddly blunt 9 year old with no tact who had a really soft sensitive heart, but managed to hurt people's feelings all the time.  (I am now a 26 year old who has improved in some of those areas, and at least has a lot more self awareness, but still struggles with those things...).

But, my mom had said it, it had to be right!  "9" was just a really hard year!!  It was that simple.   I would turn 10, and things would be different!! .....or so my nine-year-old understanding only heard that much.

The problem inevitably followed that I did turn 10, and 11, and 12...and so on.  Granted I went from having NO friends as a nine-year-old to being oddly popular for the first time ever in junior high, the time that many people hate the most....but then went right back to feeling completely out of place in high school.  High School was WAY worse than being nine.  :)

At some point in my young adulthood, this memory emerged from my bank of memories and I called my mom out on it, asking her WHY she would tell me that somehow "9" would be the worst??  Every year after that, there was a bigger, more difficult challenge.

-High school almost beat me as a person.
-My sister got Leukemia when I was 17.
-I started my first significant relationship when I was 20- and somehow went through a phase of someone telling me how wonderful I was all the time- buthaving NEVER felt so insecure.
-I got engaged that year, and nearly called off my wedding about 12 times, the worst of which I threw my engagement ring at my fiancee, which landed me crying in my mom's bed.  (Not my proudest memory...please remember I was 20...)
-I got MARRIED at 21.  Let me tell you, the first year is not ALWAYS the hardest...  :)

....And worse things than any of these have followed.

I don't remember during which life crisis I finally asked my mom why she would ever tell a 9 year old that 9 is the worst age!!  I would've given anything to go back to 9!!  She didn't respond by telling or reminding me that that's not what she said.  She didn't feel the need to prove that she was right.  She reminded me that for me, 9 WAS a really hard year.  I was 9, going on 25...or I thought so.   I was really lonely in school and saved by the fact that I had great friends outside of school who I'd grown up with- and wasn't lonely anymore after 3:15 everyday.  She reminded me that 12 was a really hard year again (not for any particular reason), and 17, and so on..

There was no crisis when I was 9.  I was dealing with typical 9 year old things.  But she didn't treat it that way.  She didn't treat it like I've somehow seen "kid problems" treated, like they aren't significant, or will go away two days later.  She told me "9 is a REALLY hard year" and it was.  And easier and harder years followed.  But I had a foundation of knowing that I didn't need to minimize how hard certain times were just because I wasn't in crisis.  I didn't have to prove why I was having a hard day, week, month or year.  It just was.  9 was a really hard year.

Now I can remind myself on difficult days that "26 is a really hard year".