Just why is it that adolescent and teen-age girls who were not all that long ago, giggly, chatty, energetically mobile, suddenly become sedentary, fixated on being gloomy and pensive?

Ah, hormones, of course.

So long ago for me, how can I even recall? Though I do, some episodes of being enthralled by certain things hinting of the unknown, mysterious future...

The girls become focused on books like the the Twilight series. And then they veer off to books with a more morbid, real-world appeal, like those dealing with gender and justice issues, family struggles, sudden death, abortion, suicide, transgendered, euthanasia. I suppose we should be glad enough that they are thoughtful and introspective, though we worry that at their age they have become too much that way.

They argue with their mothers, they agonize over societal normatives, over having to conform to what they see little value in. They are assailed with self-doubts, they dig in their metaphorical heels and claim their independence, their right to be fully respected as functioning semi-adults. As matters heat up between mother and daughter, the gaps widen.

They cleave to one another for support and mutual validation of their values. The world appears a foreboding, hopeless place at times. And at other times they see their future beckoning, irresistibly.

Do so wish I could recall the details of having felt similarly when young. Too much to ask of human emotion, memory recovery, to delve back 60 years and retrieve the feelings that might reflect how the young react now. Perhaps just as well, since back then they seemed so overwhelming.

We did survive, we endured and we became what we now are. Proud, hopeful, concerned grandmothers.