Addie

 Addie is funny,  brash, outspoken and smart. Everything that I wanted to be at her age! and was when I was 15. Then I started falling off the deep end at 16.  I don't want that for her!! I hope she is smarter than me!! I think she is. I want her to bloom, not blow up! 

Addie is absolutely adorable but,  oh no,  she also has that undertone of sadness that I had growing up.  Mine was loss of my father,  loss of family structure,  and severe abuse.  What is hers exactly? I don't want hers to be/am afraid hers could be too similar.  This is where I hope that Addie being smarter than me will save her.  Intelligence,  God, the wind,  something has to guide her to go in better directions than I did.  I survived.  Barely.  By intelligence,  God, the wind,  I dont know why I survived but I want her to do more than Survive.  I want her to overcome that sadness,  beat the hell out of it.  Figure out how to turn it into pure Joy that begets Joy. I suffered delusions of grandeur that made me believe that I could/would overcome it all, that I WAS overcoming it all. That I was secretly headed for Greatness. I didn't even realize that I was lost until I was 30, and still believed I could make the course corrections on my own until I was 40, only to have it all come crashing down.  Definitely not the life I want for Addie or anyone.  What could have changed it all? I still don't know but I wish I could do it for Addie. How can you give direction to a path you still don't even see? I pray Addie has the sanity that I didn't and don't have.  My path was insanity,  right? I should surely know that truth by now! . ? . The blind can lead the blind if they remember the number of steps to the Walls. Or is that just blind faith? Still delusion? No. Yea, maybe not me.  I won't be here long enough for it to be me.  Lindsey? I tell myself that I could have helped her avoid the quicksand if I could have at least been near her growing up.  Would fervently pray every night that she remembered those first 5 years when I was actually guiding her correctly. But that was forgotten because it wasn't enough.  Wasn't big enough to overcome her Great Sadness. I always Knew Lindsey would come back to me when she could.  And she did! even though she says she doesn't remember that first 5 years.  I believe and regret that I wasn't enough when she did return.  I had so many of them lost or being lost by then! I failed her.  Do over? Yes.  This was a moment that I definitely wish I had a Do Over for!! Could I have dropped everyone else,  if I had dropped everyone else,  could I have made a difference for her? Would I then be crying now for losing the others? Lindsey slipped through my fingers and was gone from me again until she was an adult.  But.  She is Here Now.  And MAYBE, maybe,  if I can help Lindsey now,  maybe SHE can help Addie. That's the way this goes.  ? . Good grief.

And what the hell does that expression even mean?