The Young American generation doesn’t enter the world as abruptly as it used to. We’re spoiled, and the training wheels of adulthood stay on for a while. Still, we’re conditioned with the expectation that we are serving the world with our youthfulness. We’ll get our chance to grab hold of the world someday, but for now I think we ought to remember not to run away too quickly from what brought us to where we stand: our family. I’m not saying that we revert to our overly-reliant ways of high school, where for many of us the extent of our independence was being able to drive to basketball practice competently (not always the smoothest sailing itself). Our families want to remain invested and included in our lives, and I can admit that I’ve tried eschewing this responsibility for fear of being trapped in it.
My new favorite thing about my family is that we are evolving. I’m starting to get an independent lifestyle figured out, and my sister, being two years older, is already kicking my ass and putting the bar somewhere just a touch above the atmosphere by having a job she’s passionate about, an apartment and being happy, confident, awesome, etc. And still she finds time to check up on me more often than I return the thought. My parents keep on doing their thing for the most part, which includes the managing of a business, the education of other humans, caretaking of a house and several pets, a mortgage, a Private-School-in-California-Tuition and an inspiring commitment to BBC crime dramas.
Now that I spend a limited time at home, I appreciate my family not as sterling and spotless role models, but as kind and loving humans who are always willing and able to meet me where I need them to. They are exemplary Transcenders of BS. And in my chances to return from the Great Journey I’m enjoying down in California, I’ve gotten the opportunity to deepen my friendship with my parents and sister, only now I have to put effort into making the most out of the short time we get together. Obviously, I don’t want a relationship with my parents that is only monetary, but that is a pretty major connector at the present moment. To their credit (I love them for it) they don’t make a big deal about it. Luckily, I’ve caught on that it is a pretty big freakin’ deal, so big in fact that I can’t ever actually repay them. So I don’t view my trusting of them or friendship with them as paying some sort of bill. It’s my family life now. I should live it as best I can.
We had a moment last Saturday night, a beach bonfire on the Oregon Coast, on the last night of our All-Four-Of-Us-Are-Together-What-A-Miracle-Vacation 2015. As is pretty typical of my family, it was a pretty quiet and laid back affair. No groundbreaking discoveries or lessons laid on thick – just the moment itself playing out before a magnificent sunset. We each had a chair, and the dogs came along and laid down quietly in the sand. All the pieces fell effortlessly into place. After twenty years of it being the four of us, moments like the bonfire are inspiring because of their simplicity.
The writer Richard Bach said that the bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of joy and respect in each other’s life. The bonfire on the beach was an incarnation of our bond, one that goes right to the basic principle of our love: we choose to spend time together.
What do you want to do with the last light of your summer? August means something that is majestic and inspires admiration. I can’t speak for all, but my family is my August. At that fire on the beach, I realized that the greatest gift of my youth is time. The excitement and the emboldened chase of the new will come back to me soon enough. For now, in August, these bittersweet long days, the last drops wrung out of a washcloth soon to become dry and serious again, I’m going to choose to remember to spend time with those who deserve it most.
