Puberty vs. Menopause Survival Kit

Part 3. Love

I hardly ever dream. Last night I vividly dreamt of visiting old friends, losing some precious object, finding it again and happy, with my arms full of flowers and tears in my eyes, suddenly talking to a stranger, a woman. She pointed up to the sky and said: look, how many sunrises do you see? Amazed, I stared at the most beautiful play of colors in the heavens above. The clouds were fine-feathered, moving slowly, and among them I could catch a glimpse of other shapes. Squinting and straining I recognized eyes, looking down at me, staring bright, and curiously…letters. The sky was full of letters! As if providing a proof that all is written. The letters were solitary, strewn around, as if thrown at random by a giant hand.

The allegory was so strong; I woke up in a state of confusion. I, a staunch non-believer, was troubled by doubts. Until I realized that the stranger must have been Time.

It often happens that our kids get involved with people, whom we don’t approve of. Our first reaction is to interfere and forbid all sorts of contact. In my humble opinion, it is strategically wrong. When such a problem presented itself, I thought of myself 35 years ago. On reflection, I may have been the person other people wouldn’t want their children to associate with. I was not particularly dangerous and I didn’t push drugs. I was, however, destructively impulsive and totally insensitive to the outcome of my actions. I acted before I thought. This ended in disasters of epic proportions, each one of them potentially capable of causing my spiraling down to obscurity. But they didn’t. These disasters, albeit not too quickly and not without post-op scars and complications, showed me what situations I didn’t want to end up in. They also separated the men from the boys in my life better than a crawbar.

I also learned to appreciate people for their inner qualities, places for their beauty and solitude for its safety. These invaluable lessons I would have never learned by hearsay. Another important thing that I got used to is not to overjudge my own importance as a person and as an influencer. A bit of humility goes a long way, I noticed. Having hit rock bottom you learn to love the middle way.

So what do we expect from our kids? That they learn all of these important things only by listening to us? Do we expect them to just do as we say, not as we do? Should we expect anything at all? Do we have a right to, having given them life? They didn’t ask for it.

Thinking back, most of the kids I went to school with, had all the signs of what they will master later in life, chiseled into their foreheads. One could tell, who will be an achiever and who most probably not. But not all of them. One of the girls that was excellent at school ended up as a drug addict on the streets of Sydney. Another guy who came from a family with difficult background, is a successful businessman. May be those wayward loudmouths of today will end up in management positions. May be their actions are the way to check their insecurities and limits. In this case, nobody knows more about them than your kid, and it may be an excellent way for her to find ways to deal with her own.

Trust and love. With time they are the only good companions. The components that help one to decipher those stories written above.