Advent

I text, “I’m heading to the grocery store.  Need anything?”  I have hopes he will say something like, “Yes, can you bring me some shampoo and sit around and talk for a while?  I’d love your advice on a few things!”  Of course, this is not the response at all, instead it’s “No, I’m okay thanks.”  I’m a little disappointed, but not surprised.  This is my 18 year-old, now living on his own with a roommate in a little old house a few miles away from my place, a place by the way, which is feeling less and less like home by the minute. He’s been gone a week.

Most families, whatever their shape, size or composition, will eventually go through this transformation.  It’s a bit like death, in that it’s pretty unavoidable.  Parents raise children to grow into independent adults who not only survive, but thrive, in the outside world.  As a parent, I have a list of boxes I am hell-bent on checking before I can unequivocally say my job is done here, and my children are ready, by my standards, for this passage.  I want to exceed expectations in this area, and regretfully, I feel like I am barely meeting them.

 

There is some solace, though, when I think about my own experience.  When I left the family homestead the ink was barely dry on my college diploma. My face still damp from the tears I wept after accepting a pittance of $12,500 a year in exchange for full-time employment in my area of study, I sputtered off, having robbed my siblings of the 1975 Cutlass Supreme we all shared, which was known by the way, to die on very cold mornings at the stoplight at Burlington Avenue and Route 53.  I possessed little more than the values my parents instilled in me and a fierce, independent spirit.  I rented an apartment to be “closer to work” in a seedy section of Villa Park, which I discovered decades later to be a hotbed of drug trafficking. (Don’t tell my dad.) I’m quite sure my parents thought me to be insane, and lost more than a few nights of sleep.

I sweat in that apartment, sleeping on the living room floor in front of the window air conditioning unit when temperatures soared in May and never dropped.  I covered the couch in a big blanket to hide the worn upholstery. I washed my clothes in a dank laundry room in the basement. I rolled changed when I couldn’t quite make it to payday. While my standard of living sank several notches, the place was all mine.  I explored the used book store down the street.  I shopped at the grocery store and chose my own food. I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.  It was heaven.

The odd thing is I don’t remember worrying.  Worrying came later in life, after my people arrived and I had dependents who needed me and expected me to take care of them.  Maybe I didn’t need to worry at the time because my parents were doing the worrying for me? 

What I forget sometimes is this stage of life is a passage.  It’s not about having a certain amount of money saved up in the bank, having a specific job or title, having a partner to marry.  There is no right age to venture out, no boxes to check, no stamp of approval for readiness.  You just do it.  You take a leap of faith, you step out on your own and you learn as you go.

I broke my lease at that Villa Park dive before the year was up, on to my next outlandish adventure in San Diego with my boyfriend.  We sat in lawn chairs in the living room, shared a one-car garage.  We rolled change.  I learned how to drive a 5-speed and became a master at parallel parking on the street in front of our townhouse.  We could see a little sliver of the ocean from the kitchen window. I threw darts regularly at Lucy’s by the beach. I went on to move 3 more times in the next 4 years. I made good decisions and bad ones. I learned. And I did it without my parents’ hand.

On this Father’s Day it’s important to note that what got me through, and what still gets me through today are the values and competencies my parents nurtured in me. When I moved out I had very little money. I was low on maturity. What I lacked in self-confidence I made up for in headstrongness.  What I really needed to make it on my own was instilled, I’m sure, way before my parents’ worry started when I moved out. My dad has modeled for me a tremendous work ethic, perseverance, resilience, resourcefulness, tenacity, steadfast calm, and grace under pressure.  He has taught me how to live small, to do without, how to solve my problems.  And he did all of this simply by being himself. My work with my boys is already done.  It was done a long time ago as I unknowingly steeped my children in the same by being who I am. And I’m learning to remind myself that with these qualities, my boys will survive this passage and every other that comes their way.

Now my job is to enjoy the next phase of my life, and to be here when my boys reach out.  Dad does an excellent job of paving the way for this new reality, too.  He shows me acceptance when I make bad choices, offers help when he knows it is too hard for me to ask.  He patches up heated disagreements. He welcomes my new partner in life with open arms.

I ask his brother how it’s going over there, in his new place.  He says everything is fine but there is no hot water.  I am immediately alarmed.  “It’s okay, Mom,” he says, “he’s showering at the gym.”  I can’t help myself; I call him.  It’s all fine, he tells me.  He is working through the process with the gas company. And then I am reminded of who I have raised:  A fiercely independent, resourceful, determined soul hell-bent on finding his own way. And I know he will.

Thanks Dad.