Today is the last High School track meet of my mid kid’s life. He’s doing it right. He’s competing for the open state championship–trying to be one of the top 3 runners in the state for 3 different events. It is a huge honor for him to have made it this far. Monday he will be celebrated as one of the best athletes of the season in Tempe–also an honor. He’s done it right athletically. That is why I struggle with realizing he’s a kid who just turned seventeen a month ago and treats his pop like utter crap.
These things are part and parcel of growing up. One doesn’t become old without also stepping on toes, making mistakes, challenging boundaries, and so on. However, I am a son with no parents of note. I had a step dad, but he passed on before I saw my first high school classroom. My birth dad is possibly alive. I tracked him to a particular state where all New Yorkers seemingly go to die (though he is actually from the Carolinas), but I have no relationship with the man and wouldn’t even know what to say if I did find a number. My mother is alive. She’s going to be at my kid’s graduation… Likely with my ex-wife. That sounds like a bad reflection on me, but it is actually more about them and their manipulations and bad choices I’ve made throughout life. So, when I talk about these relationships, I am not only talking about a kid (or kids) but I am also talking about the larger idea of these connections and the push and pull of it all.
It all (as it were) started with me not doing exactly what my kid wanted. This happened twice in a row in circumstances that one could consider escalating. The issue was this: There was no way his mom would do the crazy crap he was asking, so he asked his dad. When dad said no, it became dad’s fault, because dad always covers when mom sucks. Me not being that guy made me the bad guy. Sad, but true. I created the conditions of expectation that led to me being openly expected to continue behaving in such a way. When I didn’t behave as required, I was met with the full force of teenage angst and the cold shoulder.
What really sucks is that I’m soft-hearted enough to care. I wish I could buckle down and channel my inner Denzel “Love you? Boy, I raised you!!” but that isn’t working. Instead I’m facing depression off this nonsense. Owning it matters. Owning it helps me to realize what is happening and not to let it happen again. We all need to control the conditions in our lives that seek to control us, and for me this talk is a healthy way to start.