Although there are all kinds of things my teen and tweenagers are into that aren’t exactly my style (reading fantasy and science fiction, Brussels sprouts) we share in what seems—to me—like far more in the way of interests than I remember having in common with my parents in that same age zone.
Many of our reference points are seamless (it’s not like I’m listening to Justin Bieber nor are they, but we all like Joni Mitchell). Beyond pop culture, it’s how we love the CSA farm trip or the walks to farmers’ markets or any number of small moments. In general, it’s pretty easy to coexist. And we like each other’s friends.
On the one hand, as a tween and teen, I mostly wanted to get away from all things parental (with my music playing, constantly). On the other hand, I also tried to like things they liked. With my father, it was televised golf, football, basketball and tennis. My parents are divorced and he liked to spend his “down time” in front of the television so if you wanted to be with him, that’s how you did it. Ask my dear husband; I watched golf long past adolescence (although not since becoming a parent myself).
**
I’ll be honest, I come back from the hometown visit each year a bit tangled up emotionally. Rather than stay as focused on the good—in life, the good overrides everything else really and truly—I hit a familiar slick spot. It’s a childhood place, the one I inhabited for a long time. From that place I worked so hard to be seen and valued when I was a kid and often felt unseen and undervalued. It’s the place of you-don’t-quite-measure-up, but not my adult version. I trip upon the spot (like so many cobblestones and tree branches) where those feelings emanated from and it takes me a little while to figure out that I’m a grown person, who didn’t ask for things to be as they were—and, critically—who made them different in my adult life and who strives to assure things are different for my sweet, sometimes batty-making children. Do I mess up? Sure, but do I sing their praises so they can hear them? I do (off-key, but I belt ‘em out).
And do I mean my childhood was terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad? That would not be it at all; so much of my childhood—even the bittersweet parts, even with the really hard parts—was lovely and wonderful. We all love crookedly. We all love imperfectly. I get all of that and I embrace that, even. I’m talking about this particular sore spot, though. It’s like a bum knee or a creaky bone that hurts when it’s damp. The sore spot that’s part of me. Nursing it, I am left feeling terribly vulnerable; vulnerability defines this tenderness.
Back on my home turf, I have to look, really look, with open eyes at the late November sky opening wider than it seems to in midsummer and find the shivery awe at geese on the ice-crusted pond and the thick glittering frost on the early morning grass. I have to hug the children I live with, the ones who are earnest and funny and eager and smart and artistic and engaging (and even, with some patience, quite reasonable when you try to work stuff through with them). And, as my friends remind me, I have to reach inside and hug the little girl who tried so hard. I have to reassure her she did just fine.
**
When you get down to it, what better way to begin the month when days shorten and darkness overtakes and, having reached that darkest hour, the days begin to reassert themselves than noting how the light says, “Be patient. I’m on my way.”
Okay. I can be patient. Okay. I can be kind to myself. Okay. The light, it’s going to return.
