Seventh grade can be a really hard time. You are on the verge of puberty or maybe all the way in it. Doesn’t really matter because chances are you are surrounded by a ton of other kids who are.
It is hard because hormones are raging and there are more than a few moments where you can’t figure out why you are angry or happy and you are frustrated because you want to be a kid and you are desperate to be an adult.
Crap seems to be flying every which way and you feel like the perpetual outsider watching others glide through life easily and confused because you can’t figure out how to do what they are doing.
The older people in your life promise you it will be ok and swear that everyone survives and that some times you just have to take it day by day but you are not sold on that.
Not sold because you see that sometimes those bigger people are enmeshed in battles too and it makes you wonder.
Sometimes People Disappoint You
Your father says that sometimes people disappoint you and that you have learn how to roll with it. He says it is a part of life that never goes away and you wonder what sort of cruel joke that is because it seems illogical and unfair.
When you tell him this he smiles and nods his head. “Yep, it is not fair and that is the thing about life, it is often unfair. But you can depend on change because good and bad never last. So you have to learn how to roll with it and try not to get too high or too low.”
“I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that’s real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything”
Hurt- NIN
I love the Johnny Cash cover of this song. It resonates with me and I relate to it.
Been thinking about the conversation with my 7th grader and how timely it is. He has hit a few bumps in middle school that are not unexpected or surprising to me at all.
I have been waiting for them, but he views them in a different light.
Funny thing is that right as he hit those bumps I hit a few of my own.
They weren’t little bumps either, they are big monster size mountains that left me puzzled and angry.
Been a long time since I felt this sort of anger directed at anyone who meant anything to me so I am sort of unsure what I want to do about it.
What Is The Right Thing?
It is one of those moments where I ask what is the right thing to do and no one can answer that. Can’t answer it because it is subjective and I am trying to figure out what outcome I can live with.
You see there is a difference between what you need, what you want and what you get.
I know what I want and what I need but I am fairly certain what I’ll get is different. So I need to decide if I am willing to deal with the consequences.
That is the difference between me of today and yesteryear.
Consequences bother me more and yet even less than ever. It is the big contradiction I live with but I am going to make a decision soon because walking around with the flame in my belly set to high is not healthy.
Hard to accept that the people who are disappointing me the most are among those who would normally be listed among those I trust the most.
And in the silence I hear
“If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way”
and think of possibilities.
Sorry to hear you have hit a rough patch. Hope it all goes better than you think it will.
Thank you, I am hopeful.
I recently connected with a pal on FB from Reno High School. I did my first two years of high school there. The connection brought back memories of adolescent awkwardness, confusion, impatience and much disappointment. I have to chuckle now at how some thought I had it better than them – a Porsche, wealthy grandparents, etcetera. None of which made anything easier as I struggled to understand myself, the world, my place in it and my relationships with others.
Looking back, I can say that the clumsy intimations of virtue served me best in youth: courage, prudence, temperance, justice and love. And their perfection (not complete perfection) serve me well now. It seems strange to say it, but I do believe our happiness is predicated in our faithful pursuit of moral excellence. And I mean that as a positive, not a normative statement.
Chin up, old sport. You still got a lot of fight, adventure and words to unleash. The path forward awaits you.
I love that second paragraph, it is poetry.