Today, my 13 year old daughter told me the way I dressed embarrassed her. I thought I looked good; I felt good in what I was wearing.

She told me I wear the same thing again and again and she would not be going on that walk with me, that people might see us. My heart broke.

I thought back to when she was young and wore her favorite shirt or pants or boots again and again and I would desperately try to hold back and let her be who she was and comfortable and happy in clothes that made her feel good.

How do I tell her that as she is coming into her own fashion sense, I feel that I am slowly losing touch with mine? How could I ever share with her the frustration and disconnect that I am all of a sudden feeling with a midlife body that is changing shape without my consent and taking my self-confidence with it?

How do I tell her that the clothes she is seeing me now choose are an outward reflection of the safety and comfort that I feel I am desperately losing on the inside in midlife? My changing as mother, my new role as an older female who feels suddenly dismissed within a youth-obsessed culture or the brutal reality of mortality that has somehow slipped into the room unnoticed and imposingly just stands there barrelchested?

How do I tell her how distant I feel from myself and how sad I am that she, my baby, is growing up and I realize that my ability to reproduce will soon gone forever?

I want to run to her and hold her tight and tell her to make good choices and be whoever she wants to be and celebrate life and that I love her more than she will ever know or at least until she herself is a mother.

But, for now, I don’t do any of that. I smile and nod with acceptance and put my headphones in and take that walk by myself.