My Last 32 Hours

My last 32 hours:

3am- Awaken to loud knocking of door.
3:01- Face-to-face with police informing me my 15 year old niece has been arrested for curfew violation and needed to be picked up at station.
3:02-Feel blood pressure sky rocketing. Begin to search thru Britt's room to find clues.
3:16- Niece returns home with Rick still alive, no blood or broken bones.
3:40-Find out that Britt wants to go home to her mother because we are "too strict".
4:00- Read her confiscated journal, totally ignoring the right to her privacy, and learn that she has had sex with 3 different guys just since we moved here 8 months ago, sneaking out almost every night since summer started.
4:01-Realize she has single-handedly re-routed the alarm to the back door off the guest room that is never used so that the alarm is never triggered.
4:02- Begin to rethink I can handle and change her.
4:15- Contact her mother in Amarillo and tell her to come get her.
4:16- Decide I have done all I can do over a three year span for this lost little girl.
7am- Help her pack and supervise that she isn't taking any extras that she is infamous for taking.
8:30- Find out through more reading of her journal that the weekend we went to Amarillo and I let her stay the night with her mother, she and her got drunk together to celebrate her 16th b'day "in style" like most moms and daughters do...
8:31- Confront B with the entry of her journal and she says it's all true.
8:31-10:00- Discuss with her about what she is getting into by moving back in with her mother and how important graduating from HS and not getting pregnant is. Do the whole drug counseling, safe sex speech I have orated over the last 3 years AGAIN. Secretly feel relieved that my 13 y/o daughter and 12 y/o son won't be around this anymore.
10:01- Struggle with the guilt of giving her up and the fact she is doomed to fail in the environment I am allowing her to go back into. Wonder if I had adopted her 3 years ago if I would be sitting here doing the exact same thing I am doing.
10:02- Come to the conclusion she would have done the same stupid things, adopted or not.
1:30pm- Meet my sister and her husband at a gas station and give my niece to back to her.
1:31- Have to put gas in my sister's unairconditioned clunker because they have $40 to live on the next 2 weeks.
1:32- Secretly amused that Brittany really thinks she is better off with her mother in this life.
1:38- Give my sister $40 for another tank of gas to make it back, not giving them a dime more to eat on. See Britt melting in the back seat with the look of fear-masked-by-determination-to-get-her-way with a hint of regret on her sweet little face. Smile at her with my look of "this is your choice, you'll be sorry" look.
1:40- Drive off alone with my husband, leaving behind the child we let into our hearts and home and pray she remembers some of the things we taught her and that she stays safe. Think this "tough love" could be a bunch of bullshit and I have just signed her death certificate.
1:41- Cry like a big fat baby.
1:45- Call the guy to come change our locks and codes and to fix our alarm system.
1:47 to present- Pray constantly that Britt will be okay and Claire, my 13 y/o, learned nothing bad from her cousin. Consume chocolate at ever possible chance. Enjoy the 2 kids I have left at home. Look ahead with great anticipation to the development of Empty Nest Syndrome.

*****Today is my youngest child's 12th birthday. Cooper, or Coop-a-loop to me, is the sweetest boy known to mankind. I am going to totally immerse myself in him and his wishes today and enjoy the moment of his youthful innocence, knowing that over the next 364 days he will venture closer to the dark side of Teendom. Do you think it's too much weight on his 12 year old shoulders to let him know that he alone holds my teetering sanity and one wrong move could send me plummeting? Yeah, I thought so...