Sunday, 21 June 2009

• Currently Limbs And Branches By Jon Foreman see related

  The worst part of getting older is remembering how young you once were

  A few nights ago I had an experience that really startled me.

  I've been sleeping fairly poorly the past few weeks--I think it's a combination of both going off my Paxil and the fact that I simply don't sleep well in the warm summer weather (I've tried not to turn on my a/c at night).

  The other night I was sleeping and, for a change, fell into a bit of a deep sleep. In my dream I was only a child and I was running around and smacked my head into a wooden post. In the dream I fell to the ground crying, startled by the pain. And in the dream my parents came for me to hold me and tell me it was going to be okay.

  I can't really explain what happened upon awaking. I woke up and, of course, knew I was fine. I was 29 years old and hadn't run into any posts to my knowledge. But I sat up in bed and suddenly felt a very deep sadness that moved me, in the middle of the night, to tears. I'm too old to do that anymore, I remember thinking. If I fall and hurt myself, no one's coming for me. 

  Now, I'm sure that there were a number of things going into that thought. The first was, obviously, that it was the middle of the night and one's brain doesn't process thoughts as coherently as it does throughout the rest of the day. And of course if something happened to me my family would gather around and pray and encourage me; they were there every day when I was in the hospital for a week in 2002. And really, if I fall down and hurt myself I'm probably not going to call my parents--I'm going to stand up and shake it off, chalking it up one of my hundreds of clutzy tendencies.

  But still, it's stuck with me. And I think it's because I realize I'm not that kid anymore who can be hurt and run, fully trusting, into someone's arms. I'm an "adult." I'm "self-relient." If I fall and hurt myself I have to just stand up, walk it off and grit it out because even though people will encourage me no one's going to come and pick me up and tell me it's going to be okay. That's for kids; adults get through this stuff on their own.

  Something sort of similar happened just a few days before that. I was driving home from work at around 4:00 and, as I drove through a subdivision, I passed a group of kids running around the neighborhood, chasing each other and jumping through sprinklers, laughing and without a care in the world. And I remember the thought coming through my mind really quickly, "oh, I can't wait until summer break"...and then, just as quickly I caught myself. I'm a "grown up." I don't get "summer break." I may take a vacation, but even that is broken up with trying to tend to obligations, sticking to a schedule and worrying about how much money we're spending, are we getting fat on vacation food and reminding ourselves to put on sunscreen so that the sun we love won't burn us. Our adult vacations give us the illusion of freedom but not the real thing--everything is still tied into this responsibility of being grown up and responsible.

  Maybe it's a bit harder pushing 30 and dealing with this as a single adult. After all, some of those beautiful things about summer and childhood can be compensated when you're a parent or at least married. If I wake up from a nightmare, I have no one to talk to about it; I simply have to wait until the feeling disappates and then go back to sleep. Those who are married have their spouses to hold them and say "it's just a dream; it will be okay." Should something horrible happen and I'm dealing with tragedy or difficulty, I am dealing with it largely alone; I have friends I can call or e-mail but even then I'm at the whim of their availability and, at the end of the day, I'm home by myself. And parents can recapture the glory days of summer by watching their children enjoy the pool or play baseball and see a part of themselves in that. I don't have that.

  But I think it's more than just my status as a single. It's the fact that, if I were to be honest, I am approaching 30  and feeling like I've been duped about this whole process of being an adult.

  When you were a kid, being "grown up" was the freedom to do whatever you want. It was being smart enough to know the answers to things. It was being able to go to work and make money and coming home to have a nice family.

  First off, that freedom is a false freedom. Because you have to go to bed early to be up at a job the next morning. And while people may indeed go off to jobs they enjoy and that utilize their talents, the truth is that even the best jobs turn into this after awhile: pounding away at a keyboard for 8 hours while keeping one eye on the clock. At least in school there was the promise that, in a few years, there would be an end to it. You would graduate and go out into "the real world." These days, there's no promise of work ending and, if it does, we will be too old to really enjoy any of it. We leave home just as the day is starting and get home just to eat dinner and find ourselves winding down the weeknights slowly in order to start the whole ordeal over again the next day. And again, while we may enjoy our jobs, the truth is that we don't feel free at them--we're slaves to them, knowing that we have to stay there in order to keep our insurance, buy our food, keep up our cars and save up for that one vacation a year.

  And the answers to things? Do you know how much I would give just to unlearn some things that I know now? I don't like knowing that people are untrustworthy. I don't like knowing that the money I make--which, admittedly, is comfortable and yet not extravagant--is more than entire cities in other countries see in one year. I don't like knowing that I go home to a nice apartment filled with food and comforts while somewhere tonight a small child will die of starvation and disease in Africa. I don't like knowing that as much as I try and stand up to it, I've been just a big of a sucker for the American Dream as anyone--I've worked hard and gotten the place to live, some nice creature comforts and the ability to take off on vacation should I want. I don't like the fact that when I tell a kid "you can do anything you want with your life" that I feel like I'm lying to the kid; knowing that the kid is likely going to face the same culture that tells them to dream a bit smaller so that they can more effectively afford that big house and 2 cars so their family can live in comfort...and knowing that the kid, when he's grown up, will likely sell out for that.

  And the supporting of a family? Remember when you're a kid and you dream of having a wife/husband and kids? And in your mind that always happens by the time you're 20 or 25, tops. I sit here in the apartment tonight and realize that not only am I sitting here still single but that I have no idea why that's the case or if it will ever change. There's not that guarantee you have in your mind as a kid that life will go according to plan.

  Are there upsides to getting older? Sure. And that's what I keep trying to preach to myself. You get a degree of freedom that you didn't have before, a chance to live life on your own and make your own decisions. And the problems that you begin to discover with the world? Well, now you can actually be a part of the solutions. And those carefree childhood summers? I may not be able to relive them, but I'm certain that I appreciate a lazy day off a lot more than I did as a child, when they were expected and taken for granted. And while I'm still single and it's often a tough trial that wreaks havoc on the self-esteem, I can look forward to the possibility that one day, maybe, I'll be surprised by love and get to experience it. And if I don't, maybe I have the gift of singleness (and if I do, I would like someone to point me to the gift exchange line).

  And maybe I'm just having a rough time preparing for this transition to 30--a transition that is, after all, basically only symbolic. Maybe I'm just having a rough night. But I have to say that when I hear people talk about how wonderful it is to be an adult and a grown up, it's becoming a bit tougher to agree with them.

  CDubbs

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