It's not easy being judgmental -- and I omit, here, the handful of adjectives and expletives and other parts of speech that once embellished that description of me. Speaking from years of experience, those of us who tend toward the eye roll simply assume that everyone else is returning the favor -- or lack of favor, as the case may be. Could it be that nobody ever really knows what to do? That we judge just to reassure ourselves we are okay?
Yesterday, I ran into an acquaintance from my yoga days. (I still do yoga, but I have become less convinced that you can breathe your way through pain, physical or psychic; especially when one of the walls in your preferred studio is filled with mirrors.) He is preparing for "chapter two," he told me. I judged immediately -- slow reader or, as the case may be, slow writer. We're about the same age, and I'm already dipping my toe into chapter four.
The last time we spoke, he was in a low key yogic kind of panic because his only son, who had long struggled with social issues, was about to apply to college. I had told him not to worry, that everything would work out. He had looked at me as if I had two heads. That was two years ago.
Yesterday, he had just returned from visiting that same son. For the first time, his grades have slipped -- (so what?), but he is surrounded by friends, and remarkably at ease -- (Hallelujah!). I could almost touch the relief on the guy's face, the botox-y effect of a job well done and a deep breath well-earned. Years of hard work and sleepless nights had paid off, and he was ready to move out of hiatus, continue his own story. Chapter two. He even has it pretty much mapped out. What a fool. Okay, I am envious.
I suppose I never considered my child rearing years to be a hiatus, as I am far too selfish to have ever taken a complete break from myself. So that was my chapter two, and my chapter three began, I think, as my marriage disintegrated and my youngest child and I were left to navigate our own versions of "tween-dom" together. We are each, now, on the brink, one semester away from a frightening new phase. Without a map.
For the first time in more than two dozen years -- a little less for her -- life will cease to be measured by academic calendars. The comfort of artificial closures and resets will be gone, and life will no longer be sectioned into manageable pieces. She will have to accustom herself to an existence that is not all that carefree. I will have to accustom myself to an existence that, while not carefree, is certainly less likely to revolve around the needs of others. I wish I could erase her fears, but I know I can't. I know how much she has to look forward to (if all goes the way it should, in life), but I know she has to figure that out for herself. As I need to, on my end.
Only minutes into a stroll down what seemed to be a well-defined path in the woods, the other day, my friend and I got lost. As the crow flies, we were not far from where we needed to be, and there were plenty hours of sunlight left for us to figure it out, but still, it was a bit disorienting. Felled trees blocked our way in all directions, and muddy streams appeared out of nowhere. We both had different ideas about which way to go. Without judgment, we rejected my idea, then his, and chose what we both assumed was an illogical option. As it turns out, we had both been wrong, which, in my nasty habit of being judge-y, would make us fools and earn us failing grades in the navigation department. Oh, well.
Somehow, with a little leap of faith, we made it out of the woods.
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