February 12, 2003

A Michael by any other name would smell like feet.

Head's up, family members! The Prodigal Son returneth this weekend, accompanied by The Prodigal Girlfriend. Get your requests for visits in now... you know how things work when he comes home! We barely spent any time with him ourselves the last go-around...

Translation for non-family readers: Michael is coming home this weekend, and bringing his girlfriend (for whom I'll have to make up a name, I guess), whom we've never met. I wonder if she's nervous? We're a freaky family, but a close one, and I think there are more good things about us than bad.

A lot of things are happening in Michael's life that we're having to become accustomed to. One is the fact that Michael is no longer referring to himself by his first name. Nowadays he's going by his middle name - which fact threw us for a loop when we were e-mailing with some friends and family members of his girlfriend's. "We're really looking forward to meeting Anthony."

Anthony? Who the frick is Anthony? Oh, good God, he's going by his middle name now. What the hell is wrong with "Michael" (insert real name here), anyway? He's just going to have to go by two names, because we're not calling him Anthony. It's not so much the fact that we'd have to get used to it or don't like it, as much as he just *is* "Michael".

Along with that particular paradigm shift is the fact that he's apparently leaped into the functionality of adulthood all in one... well, leap. Moved off base, got an apartment, got engaged, and is talking about *marriage* and *starting a family* and... holy crap, Batman. The kid turns twenty in April. Twenty. When the hell did that happen?

I told him over the phone a few weekends ago, "I'm not going to lecture you on how you should wait until you're really old enough to be a father. But you damned well better wait until I'm old enough to be a grandmother!" I'm only twenty-eight, for God's sake. ~shudder~

At any rate (and this may serve as a warning to him, if he's reading), Calvin and I plan to have a long, serious discussion with the two of them. I was completely convinced of my maturity and "adult" status when I was nineteen (hell, I beat 'em to it and got married at seventeen). There are some life lessons that Calvin and I have *both* experienced that can be used as examples of lessons learned that don't bear repeating by the next generation. And, if this particular discussion goes the way the one I received, and the one Calvin received, when we were their age and being "lectured" by our parents, they will listen very nicely and then go out and do precisely what they want.

It is our role to instruct, it is their role to figure it out on their own. Thus it has been for time immemorial.

Calvin is more eloquent in the way he expresses this concept, but basically, it's this: There are certain things you can do at this stage in life - fresh into adulthood - that will impact what the rest of your life will be like. Be smart, be aware of the consequences, and look at the long-term. Know that there are certain things that you do have to decide on right now, and certain things that you don't have to decide on right now. The wisdom lies in having the maturity to tell the difference, and the patience to wait for certain stages and events to happen at a better time in life.

It is the bane of youth to immediately have their defenses up whenever they're reminded that they're young. I was certainly defensive of any adult even implying that I didn't know all about life and the living of it. I don't know how the adults in my life could have been gotten through to me in a way that would have made me really listen and know the value of their advice. At that time in my life, I did what I though was the right thing for me, regardless of if the adults in my life agreed. I thought they were at least misinformed (I believe the concept of "generation gap" played into this belief in my foolish mind), or at worst, plain stupid. I spent a lot of time telling my relatives they "didn't understand". After all, how could they possibly? They don't have it as hard as I do. They don't have the kind of concerns and stresses I do. They have no idea what it's like to be me.

I'll see that drivel and raise you a "feh". I realize now that I was the one that didn't understand. They were right (and, really, it took me until I was almost twenty-five to fully admit that to myself - and longer to admit it to them). I'm perfectly willing to eat crow now, having gained the perspective on the other end of things.

What Calvin and I are hoping that Michael and his girlfriend gain from our conversation is that we're entirely supportive of anything they want to do in life in order to achieve happiness. But where our knowledge and perspective can be of benefit to them is to help them clarify what their priorities should be. Not by telling them what they should and shouldn't be doing, but by educating them on how to set and obtain the goals and achievements that will make their adult life, in and out of the Corps, one that is successful. We can help them stay free of the bumps that Calvin and I have already taken, and have learned how to avoid.

Essentially, the road Calvin and I had to take in order to get where we are in life was a lot harder than it had to be. It was all because of the decisions we made when we were exactly their age. The same type of decisions that they're on the brink of making now.

I really hope they take what we have to say to heart.

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©Laura Charon 2000 - 2003.