Truth Bomb #4: Doubt Us...That Will be Fun

My daughter and I are both Tauruses. In fact, her birthday is a mere week before mine. I was lucky enough to bring her home from the hospital on Mother's Day weekend 2006. She was literally perfect. A small round face, smooth, unblemished skin and the biggest, brightest eyes I had ever seen. It was the best birthday present I had ever received. On that warm spring day in 2006, we had no idea what future held for both of us.

There are so many great things about sharing a birthday week with my Elizabeth. We get to celebrate together every year and even as I turned 45 this spring, she still agreed to blow out the candles with me. Sharing a birthday week also means there are two Tauruses in this house. Two stubborn bulls. We are loyal to a fault, nurturing and empathetic, but oh so determined. We will literally stand by you until you run over us. The minute you tell us we can't accomplish something, that just fuels our stubborn fire with the determination of a horse in the Kentucky Derby.

Being a Taurus also means that we don't give up on people easily. The messages they send may hurt us over and over and over again, but giving up on them is painful. Sometimes it means giving up the entire relationship just to protect our hearts and minds, and there is nothing harder for a Taurus than letting go. Even when we know that the words they say cut like a knife, we will bury the pain deeper and deeper just to give the "faux relationship" one more chance. The sad truth is, the more we hear those words, the more it becomes harder to dismiss. Before you know it, we are believing it with every ounce of our being, and literally wearing the words as our identities.

Last year, my sweet Elizabeth's journey with mental health became more complicated. We spent more time with psychiatrists, counselors, pediatricians, and pharmacists helping her to heal and take control of her heart and mind. She practiced the skills needed to manage on the day-to-day and we found a medication cocktail that worked for her. The truth is, the whole time she's been burying her pain and experiences, only further complicating her journey. But that's a story for another day.

So after six months of watching her spend more days in her bed than anywhere else, with little motivation to do much of anything, she finally showed an interest in something new. By this point in her sophomore year, she had given up on soccer and swimming and I began to worry that her high school career would be completely clouded by depression and anxiety and emotionally abusive memories. She came home from school one day in the fall and announced that she wanted to try out for cheerleading. Several other former soccer players were cheering and she thought she might have a shot at it. I was elated, and not just because I spent my youth cheering, but because for the first time in months she lit up with an ounce of motivation and excitement.

The unfortunate part of this story, is that not everyone was as excited for her as me. I will never forget the phone call to her father. The moment he told her "you should do something you will get an A in, not something you will get a D in.. I just can't see you being successful and I can't support it." Her hands were shaking and her eyes welled up with tears when she hung up the phone,. She turned to me, took a breath and said "well now I'm even more determined to make the squad." With that, she practiced her little butt off in our backyard, made the JV squad, ended up absolutely loving every minute of it and making new friends, pulling her out of the bed and out of a challenging depressive state.

Sadly, this experience isn't uncommon for either of us. We've been told we aren't good enough, are "crazy", aren't smart enough, we're disorganized and "a mess." This summer, Elizabeth wanted to take her art skills to a week-long residential camp at The University of Cincinnati. My girl is wildly talented with a paintbrush and pen. I can't draw a stick figure to save my life. #artfail :) Despite her incredible talent, some may still believe she's not "capable" because of her mental health struggles. So just months before the final camp decision was to be made, in another challenging argument between the two of them, her father told her she can't go anymore because she's "not emotionally mature enough, doesn't have her s*it together and can't possibly handle it., and clearly the therapy isn't working, so she doesn't deserve to go."

Once again, her eyes filled with tears and she desperately wanted to prove him wrong, and prove to herself and all of us that she is capable of great things. I mustered up the finances to make it happen, with the support of my family, because I, too, was determined to support her dreams and I knew all along she could do it. I couldn't afford one dime of it, but I couldn't afford not to make it happen, either.

You know what? That same teary-eyed, but determined girl proved the doubters wrong once again. This spring, she went on to make the varsity football, basketball and competition cheer squads for 2022-23. She also just came home from a week of residential DAAP camp at UC yesterday, where she completed a "mini graduation" and art show, made friends from across the country, and filled my car with some wildly impressive works of art. The UC professors shared over and over again that Elizabeth was such a hard worker, with talents that will take her far in life. Her dad wasn't there to support it, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Proud is an understatement.

We Tauruses are a caring, but complicated bunch. We may be loyal, but we can be stubborn and determined. Doubt us? That'll be fun.