“Let Me Go Shave First”
This column first appeared in the January 2015 issue of Forsyth Family magazine:
Doobins turned 12. He says he’s as tall as I am. I say he’s still a smidge shorter than I am. It’s beyond dispute, though, that the day when he is appreciably taller than I am is not far off.
As he spurts up, I sometimes find myself thinking about what all I should make a point of telling him along the way toward him becoming an adult. Part of that is figuring out what he is ready to hear.
Once, when I was a young man having girl troubles, I found myself irritated with the adults in my life. “Why didn’t anyone warn me that life could be like this?” I wondered.
Later, it dawned on me that not only had the adults in my life been telling me that life could be rocky but also half the songs on the radio were making exactly that point. I just hadn’t been ready to hear it until it happened to me. When it finally sunk in that I had been fully informed long ago, I switched to thinking, “Oooh, so that’s what they meant.”
I pay most of the household bills online. The other day, when a bill came in the mail, I headed toward the computer to pay it while I was thinking about it. Doobins happened to be nearby and I said, “Hey, buddy, want me to show you how to pay bills?”
Mostly, I was just saying it for fun. It’s definitely on the list of things he will need to know at some point, though, and, if he had said “yes,” I would have been happy to show him.
Without missing a beat, he said, “Let me go shave first and I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Message received and noted. Today was not the day he was ready to learn about paying bills.
Sometimes I marvel about how quick that boy is. I was so impressed that, after I paid the bill, I called up Doobins’ grandparents to tell them what he had said.
I can see Doobins making his living one day by telling funny stories. If he were to do that on stage, he would have to become more comfortable being around people he doesn’t know.
I know exactly how that is. When I was Doobins’ age, I was so shy that, when I was around a new adult, I looked at the ground when I talked to him or her. The work that I do – talking to people and then writing stories about the conversations – requires me to I act as if I am naturally outgoing. Inside, aspects of the shy introvert still linger, and, from time to time, I have to balance things by taking a day off from dealing with the outside world.
Living life day-to-day, it’s sometimes hard to see the purpose of particular experiences. One lesson I learned about each step serving the next came from being a waiter. At the time, waiting on tables seemed to be little more than a way to make money while I found a satisfying way to make a living for the long term. In retrospect, though, I see how valuable it was because it enabled me to become far more comfortable interacting with people I didn’t know, thereby laying the foundation for what I do now.
So I know that, along the way, Doobins will learn whatever he needs to know to follow the path he is supposed to be on. My job is to be supportive without trying to force something whose time has not yet come and to let his grandparents know whenever he comes up with a line that I know they will appreciate.