This was the year I thought my dreams were coming true: we were not going to have to lug all the Christmas decorations back to the storage unit since we were finally building the garage. Unfortunately, it's not done yet, so once again, just like the Grinch, we had to haul the light up Santa, my favorite tinsel wreath, and the million red and green totes back up Mount Krumpit. It's okay. I consider it seasonably appropriate.

Looking over at  my tween in the passenger seat, I can see she's visibly upset. She still gets the same look as she did when she was little and got her feelings hurt: the watery eyes, the droopy lids, and the bottom lip poking out in a pout. I get it, I never want to put the light up Santa away either. I mean, we're in the South. Why can't we keep him up all year?

"Are you okay? You look upset," I asked while braking lightly, ready to make a left turn at the light.

"I'm just disappointed," Senia Mae says.

"Oh. What are you disappointed about?" I ask. We're heading into teenage years and I am learning very quickly that certain subjects should be tread upon very lightly.

"I'm disappointed in you," she says and turns to look at me. She is holding back a waterfall of tears, her disapproving look describing how I have failed to uphold some expectation, unable to believe whatever it is that I have done. Suddenly I'm gripping the steering wheel, my palms are sweating, I'm taking quicker breaths. Seeing my daughter's disappointment in me was way worse than any condemnation my mother could have ever given me in high school. I just couldn't take it. But wait a minute. I'm the parent? Why am I sweating? I'm the one who's supposed to be saying those words.

"Why are you disappointed in me?" I asked because I was clueless. There had been no warning. I really had no idea where this was coming from.

"I found your cigarettes," she said. They had just had a lesson in school about all of the carcinogenic additives in tobacco products, I'd noticed several worksheets had been left on the kitchen counter sitting under a pile of mail.

"My cigarettes?" I still had no idea what cigarettes she was talking about.

"On your dresser." I racked my brain for a second, now that I'm forty-nine and don't always recall things as easily. I don't smoke. If I did smoke and was trying to hide it from my daughter, I definitely wouldn't be dumb enough to leave cigarettes out on the dresser. Then I remembered what she must have seen: a box of Dad Grass CBD joints.

"That box of Dad Grass?" I asked. She crossed her arms in front her chest, nodding disapprovingly. "That was a joke I bought for Grampy last year. Somehow they got shoved behind some cards on the dresser and I forgot to give them to him for Father's Day."

"Why would you give him cigarettes for Father's Day?" she asked, apparently appalled that I was giving away a deadly present like cigarettes, unaware they might be more incriminating than what she was accusing me of.

"My parents used to wait tables and one time someone left them a joint as a tip." I'm not sure she knows what a joint is, but I continued anyway. "They kept that joint in the top drawer of their dresser. When I was a teenager, they'd tell me I didn't have to go out and try drugs. I could just take that dried up, old joint that they had in the drawer and smoke it. That should suffice if I wanted to experiment with drugs." I laughed at the memory. Their ridiculous method actually worked. I never felt like I had to sneak or be extremely deceitful because in a way they had given me the okay. The choice always ready and waiting in their top drawer. It probably still is.

"Mommy and I were shopping in Clayton one day and I saw that box of Dad Grass at the register. It's just CBD, it's not illegal. But it was so funny I had to get them for Grampy. It reminded me of the joint in their top drawer. Then, of course, I got busy and forgot about them."

I looked over at Senia Mae and she was smiling, my justified explanation worked. The heaviness of the moment before was forgotten and replaced with relief.

Whew, that was a close one. I'm sure there are going to be many more times that she is disappointed in my decisions, my actions, my truths as compared to the version of me she has seen through her rose colored glasses. I never want to be any less than she thinks I am and then I wonder how does she actually see me? As my daughter looked happily forward, moving on to the next important thing in her tween life, I wondered who was more relieved, her or I?