When You're in Your Second Adolescence

After three days spent with my three best friends from high school and college, hopping from one Iowa home to another, I feel like I've run a verbal marathon, which is exhausting for this introvert who usually measures out her words in hour-long chats, not days-long.  

They wasted no time with shallow filler.  

"Becky, your new home is beautiful!"
"Thanks, what would you do if some of your close friends were in the middle of a nasty divorce?"

Seriously, we had only made it as far as her mudroom.  

The cathartic thing about this near-annual trip is stepping back from my year and trying to articulate it when they give me their "how are you, tell the truth" look.  At home in the dailiness, I move from one chore to another, from one shade of emotion to the next, quick prayers, brief conversations with in-and-out children, mealtime chats with my husband before we do our own thing in the evenings. Occasional heart to hearts, but not big summaries of my life.  

Phrases like "identity crisis" came out of my mouth.  Becky described it as a "second adolescence" without the pimples. Well, there are some pimples, too!  As I think about that more, I think she is right.  In my first adolescence, I was bucking for self-rule, trying to figure out my personal identity.  I figured it out, became a believer in Christ, then a wife, a teacher, then a mother. I relished being in charge of these little, impressionable lives.  

Now my teenager is bucking for self-rule, not in a disrespectful or destructive way, just not exactly what I would choose for him.  I find myself nitpicking and chiding him, knowing that is NOT the graceful way to parent a teenager.  I'm bucking for power again, when I need to be coaching and cheering.  

That's where Tracy, my oldest friend, who knew me through my first adolescence, says wryly, "He's just like you were."  

Gulp.  That's right.  And then she adds, "I always admired you for that independent streak."  Really?  Did my mom lay awake at night worrying that I would choose the hard path and suffer for it? Probably.  I'll have to ask her.  

If the first adolescence is about finding your identity separate from your parents, is the second adolescence about finding your identity separate from your children?  

Mara, whose 17-year-old daughter runs the State Center, Iowa, farmer's market, and whose 14-year-old son has a blacksmithing forge in the garage, always inspires me with her choice of a simpler, non-materialistic life.  She is still the same girl who, as an RA in the dorms at Iowa State, put this sign on her door:

"I had no shoes and complained until I met a man who had no feet."

Being around her makes me not want to complain about the petty things but care about the important things.  That's what I have been trying to discern lately.  The petty versus the important.  

Old friends help you see the difference and accept you, pimples and all.  

The Elusive Finish Line

My two dearest friends blogged yesterday about elusive finish lines.  I was struck by how two divergent stories could be so similar. 

One feels like she is running a marathon in knee-deep mud while someone keeps moving the finish line farther out.  She is waiting to bring two daughters home from Haiti, and the loooooong process of adoption is laying her out flat.  

The other found out yesterday that her cancer has metastasized to several bones.  Her finish line seems too close.  She is trying to figure out how to make each day mean something.

I don't know what to do, what to say, how to pray, so I pray selfishly that God would move the finish lines closer, further.  That when my beautiful friends cross them, they would both receive a prize so glorious that the past suffering would melt away in four little black arms...in two loving, eternal, unfathomable arms.  

While my friends are in these epic races, I am plodding on in the "long obedience," trying to learn from their stories, trying to serve and love and fully live out my little days.  The next few will be spent laughing and breaking bread with 3 women who have left their indelible marks on me as we lived life together in my high school and college years.  I will visit Tracy, my high school friend who laid on the floor beside me at sleepovers and talked about the God who would eventually come into my life and turn it upside down, and Mara, who pulled me out of my small, self-centered thinking in college, and challenged me to think and love and live more deeply, and with  Becky, who befriended me in college and has never stopped being the cheerleader of my faith and endeavors.  

My finish lines this week will lead to their doorsteps and into their arms, and I suppose that is how we are to live, with daily finish lines, small, meaningful milestones, and much gratitude.  

Buying Vowels

I have a friend who recently made a humorous quip about hating when contestants on Wheel of Fortune buy vowels right before they solve the puzzle.  They are just throwing away money! she ranted.

I wonder if I would buy the vowels, just to know for sure it would all work out.  Pay for the guarantee.  God has a different economy for our lives, though.  He turns the letters as we need to know them. He leaves some blanks.  He occasionally gives us $1000 spins, where we must make a choice that is pivotal in our journey.  

Today, a $1000 letter was turned for me.  My daughter wandered over to me in the den, looking  a little sheepish.  "What's up?" I asked.

"I'm nervous to say this," she offered, wringing her hands.

"Just say it," I smiled, wondering what was going on.

Then the tears started and she became choked with emotion.  "I want to be baptized."  I felt my own heart rise to my throat and tears leak from my eyes, and in my mind, I jumped up and down and clapped while Pat Sajak gave a sideways grin at the camera and Vanna swished her pretty dress.

I wasn't expecting this.  We hadn't talked about baptism in ages.  It was clearly God's work, not mine, which is how I'd always prayed it would be.  

A feeling washed over me, like the gratification of solving the puzzle.  Like winning the jackpot.    

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap the harvest if we do not give up.  -Galations 6:9