Things I Now Understand

I believe much of the wisdom we accrue in life comes only after pushing through pain (repeatedly), getting knocked down (repeatedly) or making some horrendous mistake (repeatedly) that we look back on later with the disbelieving thought, "What THE HELL was I thinking?!" In these instances, understanding comes  only after the pain has been soothed, we've picked ourselves up or a course correction has been made.

 

Thankfully, not all knowledge works that way. Some ah-ha moments gather momentum slowly, building on top of each other like snug fitting Legos in a slow accumulation until the sheer weight of repetition brings realization. These nuggets aren't earned the hard way. They don't require a sucker punch or hard rap on the head. Time is all it takes.

 

 And the acquired information isn't specific. They don't include any, "I am the only person who has ever gone through this" moments - just plain old, run-of-the-mill truths that make each of us much more alike than different.

 

We couldn't possibly have understood any of this when we were younger. We were simply oblivious witnesses to it on a daily basis as we accidentally watched  our Moms and Dads go through each of their days. Sometimes they sailed; other times they plodded. Either way, they kept moving forward. Unknowingly, their words and deeds - whether heroic or harried - sunk into our subconscious. We didn't get it then. But with time and trials, we sure understand it now.

1. Aches and Pains in the Morning. I am a fairly fit person - exercise often enough, eat when I need to. My diet is somewhat one-sided (green things rarely grace my table), but it's slowly improving. Nonetheless, each morning includes a wake-up period full of cracks and creaks, groans and moans, itches and scratches. Like an old car leaking oil, the joints take a while to loosen up and regain their fluidity. And what's all that gooey, crusty gunk oozing out of my eyes each sunrise? Moms and Dads - your a.m. cups of coffee make perfect sense to us now.

 

Speaking of which:

 

2.  Complete Dependency on Coffee. We always wondered why you seemed crabby first thing in the morning. No further explanation needed. Message received: insert coffee here before uttering complete sentences. The zombie craze in literature and film is not a metaphor for our mass consumer culture and mindless, follower mentality. Oh no, it is simply a re-telling of the state of mind Moms and Dads were in before that first (or fourth) cup sent them out the door and onto the daily treadmill of work and parenting. Keep it coming, Juan Valdez.

 

3. Gas in the Morning. Kids past and present are so malleable that their physical state never undergoes the daily changes that an adult experiences from a.m. to p.m. to a.m. again. But as grown-ups crawls from bedroom to bathroom to kitchen each morning, all sorts of bodily functions are being jostled and awakened. Naturally, these internal adjustments bring with it external sounds. Let me be plain. If you don't agree from personal experience that us older folk can really emit some deafening blasts between wake-up and work than you are lying to yourself. Either that or I grew up next to a parade of elephants.

 

4. Because I Said So . . . Moms and Dads - for all of the times we kept repeating why after you replied with what we thought was a very lame, because I said so, I'd like to issue a heartfelt group apology. We know now that you had a justifiable reason all along. You were just too damn tired to share it. And we were just too damn self-absorbed to remember that after a long day of working, meal making, bill paying, errand running and chauffeur driving, giving one more person one more explanation justifying your decision-making might have been one too many.

Naturally, this phrase was followed by the always popular:

5. Adolescent Eyeroll. This deeply satisfying (but equally disrespectful) physical activity is perfected between the ages of 12 and 18. Kids, we know you still throw us eyerolls daily because we tossed them out to our Moms and Dads too. And by the way dear children, we match you eyeroll for eyeroll. You just don't catch us because you are too busy looking at the ceiling every minute or so. Also, most of our eyerolls are internal. We've learned in adulthood that - for self-preservation - it's better this way.

 

6. Our Parents Were Not Old. I remember thinking in elementary school that one day I would be 20 years old. Ancient. Any double-digit number that didn't start with a "1" seemed impossibly unreachable. And yet I knew I would hit those numbers some day. Kids don't really attach an age to their parents. Sure, they might know what the actual number is but it's still essentially meaningless. They were just our parents, not people. They couldn't possibly have thought thoughts that didn't have something to do with us. Were they spontaneous? Did they still have dreams? Did they want more? Had they changed? Did they feel old?

 

The answer to each one of these questions, save the last one, is yes. I know I'm not alone in having a much greater appreciation and understanding now of the decisions, choices and sacrifices parents made on our behalf then. Life and its daily demands has a wearing effect - too often numbing our dreams and expecting only dutiful dreariness in return.

 

So let's get off that hamster wheel. It's taking us nowhere. Let's find moments of childhood every day. Have a bowl of Fruit Loops. Watch some cartoons. Play games. Kiss in public. No, the morning gas won't go away. Neither will the aches and pains. Coffee? Still on the menu. But let's be foolish and frivolous and funny because that's what we used to do when we didn't know any better. When we were kids.

 

And because I said so.