The Next Generation

It's no secret to my friends, my family, and the readers of this blog that I've been through a lot in my few decades on our planet. I've seen things and endured things that don't bear repeating. I've struggled, I've floundered, I've survived, I've overcome. I've packed a lot of living into 30 years. I spend most of my time these days feeling grateful and doing my best to translate my experiences into meaningful contributions to the world around me. I've climbed back out of the rabbit hole.

Recently I've been confronted with a distressing fact: there's a whole new generation going through the thick of the ugly. Kids who don't have the benefit of perspective or hindsight are facing challenges we old folk never knew. My 10-year old son, a wickedly smart, startlingly insightful, hypersensitive, anxiety-ridden kiddo, is mired in an internet-fueled crisis. Some of his peers exposed him to a website full of content about violence, self-harm, and suicide. He panicked. He didn't want to get his friends into trouble, but he also intuitively knew things were dangerous. He came to me (thank God) and shared his fears. He cried. He admitted his own lack of confidence, his anger, his confusion. He drew pictures depicting the traumatic images he witnessed. He asked me why things like that exist.

I put my mom pants on and calmed him down, did my best to reassure him, and praised him for coming to me. Inwardly, though, I shriveled up. Every nerve in my body shrieked in painful memory. I had always assumed that my past hurts were uniquely mine; that the crippling loneliness and anguish I felt as an adolescent were exclusive to me. The situation in which my son found himself proved to me that bewilderment, isolation, and despair are achingly common in children. That's a stinging reality to face.

Part of me wanted to shut down and run away. Too many reminders, too much raw emotion. A bigger part, the mama bear part, knew that hiding wasn't an option. I laid my soul bare to my son. I told him about the times in my life I've felt inadequate, scared, unloved, corrupted. I told him that I've had negative thoughts that kept me awake at night. I told him that I've been in situations that I couldn't make sense of, and how distressing that was. I told him how I kept going anyway. How I asked for help. How I kept the faith that things would get better. How things DID get better. I hugged him tightly and told him how much I love him. That was all I could do.

There's a whole new crop of humans ready to make their debut in the world. We owe it to them to be vulnerable and to expose our own imperfections. To expose our own humanity. Only then will they be prepared to acknowledge and accept the tumult that will inevitably grow inside of them. Only then will they feel confident to face their trials head-on, secure in the awareness that victory over struggle has been achieved and will be achieved again.

Wings

Wings

Birds hold the sky.
They occupy a world above our own, awake to the insignificance of ground and gravity.
Starlings and robins and sparrows dominate the air
on wings of paper.
Hollow bones fragile as reeds in October. Vulnerable like china in the hands of a child.
Tiny, insubstantial creatures, birds.
Tiny, insubstantial creatures fashioned to command the heavens.