THOSE YEARS

Our place is quiet once again as the girls have returned to their father’s house tonight. Now it’s back to just me and my son as I try to navigate the early teenage years with him.

‘Ah, those years’, he said when I told him my son is a freshman at high school. ‘The ones where you’re trying to find your way’, he added.

The security guy from our complex knocked on my door shortly after my daughters dropped off their backpacks to go see the homecoming parade across the street. He informed me of an incident at the clubhouse. An incident involving someone who was seen with my son.

I agree that the first year of high school can be very difficult. We want to fit in and sometimes we might do things we normally would not do just to be accepted. But a similar thing happens as we age. When we try to fit in with the neighbours. Or our coworkers. Or even our friends. We sacrifice our identities so that we are liked. So that we don’t stand out. Even though we know this to be pointless.

I texted my son to see what he knew about the ‘trashing’ of the clubhouse. He let me know those guys were not his friends and he did not know what happened, but he would talk to the manager tomorrow to clear up things and to clear his name.

The teenage years seem to move slowly. For teenagers and their parents. We struggle along the way but eventually, we all find a rhythm to life.

As time moves on, we continue to grow and to find other versions of ourselves. Hopefully better versions. We adapt and learn from our mistakes. We are not afraid to be different. We create our own identity and find that those years where we struggled the most, we also learned a lot about ourselves and of our capabilities.