Executrix

I know he’s moving, but the pace is glacial; time-lapse photography is required to render it detectable by the naked eye. To know and be comforted by this certainty is one of the perks of aging.   “While all old people have been young, no young people have been old.”  I read this obvious, yet obscure, truth nested in a beautifully-written piece of advice for young writers by Andrew Solomon.  It reminds me I have an indisputable advantage, very similar to the one Big Nutbrown Hare holds over Little Nutbrown Hare in the children’s book “Guess How Much I Love You”.  A child understands the enormity of her mother’s devotion only through becoming a mother herself; the wisdom of the old can only be reaped by the sheer act of shedding youth through the process of living.

 

Deciding what to do with life on the brink of adulthood is an archetypal rite of passage.  Has anyone not lingered at this spot, even if it’s just a tiny bit longer than they’d like?  Even the most confident, together kid has got to possess a modicum of unvoiced self-doubt at this juncture.  If she hasn’t, can she really be human?  Everyone stops here.  And if you’re lucky, you’ll stand in these ruts again.  I like to think finding ourselves at a crossroads is a sign of healthy living.  It means we’ve outgrown the old and it’s time for something new.  We’re growing, nudged to the point of bother by our true selves, anxious to release our onlyness to the world, yet deathly afraid to put it out there.

“Make your mistakes as big as it takes,” says Dallas Clayton, yet another author of children’s books loaded with simple wisdom for adults (and cool illustrations).  I read this and I think, yes, that’s right in theory, but oh so hard to carry out.  Who wants to put themselves out there for the epic fail?  Maybe this is why it can feel like our worst mistakes are the ones we didn’t see coming. Those situations where we look back, scratching our heads:  Every decision I made along the way seemed to make sense, how did I end up here? 

It’s scary to knowingly put ourselves in a position where chances of failure are high, but if you think about it, this is where we have the most control.  What if we said “I’m going to try this, and I know I might fail, but if I do I’ll own it?”  It means owning the embarrassment, the judgment, the ridicule others may throw at us, but most importantly it means owning those feelings we put on ourselves. That single voice in our head carries far more power over us than a chorus of voices outside ever could.

 

It seems so easy, being the person on the outside, to have staring me in the face everyday all that is wonderful and beautiful and brilliant about my young adults. It’s obvious the world needs to see this, and they need to see it now. I want my boys to roll up a sleeve for me so I can inoculate them with a dose of the pathogen of failure, let it course through their veins, fortifying them with the courage it takes to put themselves out into the world.  But my job is to stand beside them on this journey and love them no matter what.

 

My job is hard.  While I understand this station in life and all passing through it encompasses, I don’t fully understand all that makes up an individual’s personal journey.  I know they need to go it alone.  I know there is no published schedule or timeline setting expectations I can regulate my emotions upon.  My faith waivers; my fears surface; I lose my temper; I revert to old-school tactics proven to do more harm than good, my voice tolls the knell of impatience. Why?  Because I’m Big Nutbrown Hare; our lives are forever entwined; our bond permanently cemented. What happens to me if they don’t find their way?  How do my hopes and dreams for realizing my true self need to be altered if they are unable to find their true selves?

I wish I could administer on their behalf the wealth inside them; all the gifts they have to bestow on the world held hostage by fear. While I want this earnestly for them, if I’m being completely honest, I want it a little bit for me, too.  But maybe the right answer is to figure out how I continue moving forward expressing my onlyness while they muster the courage to do the same.