Sunday, March 8, 2015

Cleaning out the queue: Things I didn’t know at 20, but know now, sorta

I started this column last July.  I’m cleaning house today, so I’m going to finish it and post it and then move on to the other ones I’ve not finished. 
July 17, 2014: I’m getting awfully close to another birthday.  That, and the kind of year that we’ve had has me feeling reflective again.  It’s not a rare occurrence mind you, but it’s been difficult to find both the time and the motivation to write.  But, my pal over at the “Moving Girl” blog ( http://azdenek.wordpress.com/ ) has inspired me to get back on the horse so to speak.  Not that I have a horse or anything. 
Sorry-I have a very, VERY, literal child in my house.  I’ve been working on keeping things rather direct.  I fail a lot.  That said, I’ve been thinking a lot about change and how it constantly affects our lives-sometimes because we wish it-say, making a change to leave a job that’s rapidly destroying you to become a stay at home parent.  Other times when we face change we didn’t wish to entertain such as the loss of a loved one: we’ve faced that one a few times in the last year both to death and to other modes of choice and adjustment.  But the change keeps coming and we deal with it.  Change requires flexibility and being open to new possibilities or sometimes just simply being forced to accept what it.  That is a challenge for everyone in my house, as I imagine it is in yours, and the nature of that challenge is rather unique to certain members of our family.  That said, I feel like we are in a good place now and learning a lot about how to navigate the world around us and the particular challenges that we face.
And yet, I find my thoughts reaching back into the past-for some reason 20 years seems to be popping into my head.  That would put me back at COW, about to enter my senior year.  My future wife graduated that May and was off to BU for grad school.  I had completed my Junior year Independent Study Project and was hoping to ride it’s coattails into my Senior year project.  I spent the Spring celebrating those successes and Nelson Mandela’s inauguration as President of South Africa.  I spent the summer working at the post office and glued to the radio and TV following the circus that was the OJ Simpson Trial.  I was irritated that baseball had a strike that ended the season just a year after the 1993 Phillies had been such a fun season to experience, despite its awful end.  I still hate Joe Carter.  I forgive Mitch though.  I probably seemed a pretty normal 20-year old, though we all know now, well, at least I do, that I was still processing some serious issues that would continue to be a challenge for years to come, but I was working hard in school and earning money over the summer and in a stable relationship with the girl I would marry.   
But, I thought very differently about things than I do now.  How so?  Let’s explore that…
1)      I’m a way different parent than I thought I would be at 20. 
I knew I wanted to be a parent back then, but I knew very much that I was not ready to do it anytime soon.  I don’t know how I knew that, but being a parent now, I get it.  I was way too self-involved in those days.  I was a mess too and probably at least partially a complete asshole at times, but I was very much into being the “singer-songwriter guy” on campus and in clubs in New Hope, Philly, and Princeton over the summers.  I was very much about that dream at the time and played a lot of shows, not all of them awful I’d like to think.  If you asked me then about the kind of parent I thought I’d be, it would have been “I would want to relate to them and be their friend-obviously I’d be way cooler than all their friends parents.”
 
*Picking up now on 3-8-15:
Now I realize that type of parenting is not for me.  I never would have imagined being a stay at home dad back then.  I was too busy planning my speeches for the Grammy Awards and figuring until then I’d try to be Mr. Keating from “Dead Poet’s Society.”  Yes, I did in fact once try the “Oh Captain, my Captain” thing with a class.  They had the politeness to look at me like a complete dork too, for which I now applaud them. 
I like to think I’m a good parent, but I most certainly not the sort I thought I would have been at 20. 
I think we’ll have a speed round here, as I’ve left myself a few piles of things to finish and the kids are at Kohls with the wife, so here goes-other things I know now that I didn’t know at the age of 20: 
2)      If you let the laundry pile up for a day, you end up with 5 loads to fold 2 days later.
3)      My parents probably knew about some of the dumb stuff I did as I kid and they just let it go out of both embarrassment for me and an desire to avoid awkward conversations.
4)      It matters more that I actually learned to do something at school than what my grades actually were.
5)      Making #4’s realization was the key to rocking graduate school.
6)      It’s easier to have one uncomfortable conversation with someone who’s wronged you than it is to carry that angst, even a little bit of it, within you for years.
7)      The Eagles still haven’t won a Super Bowl.
8)      I don’t need to hold onto every single notebook, note, letter, and other such bric-a-brac from 1st through 12th grade in order to have real memories of the time.  Had to downsize a few years ago…
9)      I’m glad that we did not have smartphones in Junior High and High School.  I’m sure we would’ve enjoyed them but yikes…what might have been caught on camera.  I’d still be grounded.
10)  It’s going to be ok.  I was full of anxiety and angst in those days, despite the pleasant musical styling's of Hootie and the Blowfish. 
 
If I could tell my 20-year-old-self that one thing, I think it would have been interesting.  But, the journey from there to there has been engaging and has made me who I am now, so I’ll take it, as, I’m pretty ok with it. 

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