As I helped celebrate my stepson’s 25th birthday with his mother, my wife and his wife a delightful native Chinese woman at the Cheesecake Factory, we witnessed the Wolf Moon. I suppose you might have heard about it being recognized as the first full moon of 2010 but also one that will have been the most brilliant of the year.
It gave me an inspirational metaphor about my own moon that has waxed and waned during my tenure as a stepfather. It made me realize that no matter how much of a ‘moon phase’ I was showing I have always been there for these now adult stepchildren even when I felt like I was only a new moon.
My stepson was attending parochial school and he was every young girls dream. Handsome, quiet and just a boy with a kind heart. But, getting him up for school was an ordeal that at first I tried to stay out of, then got involved in and eventually threw up my hands over. It was a lot of lost sleep, anguish and no matter how much cajoling we engaged in getting my stepson up for school was four years of hell. He was sick more mornings than I could count and overslept at least twice a week.He refused to ride the bus and we had to go and get him in the nurse’s office at least 3 times a month. One year they wanted to leave him back because he had missed so much school.
Get the picture? I had such resentment I would usually be up late most nights on appointments with clients and the alarm would go off in the morning 40 minutes before he was to get up for school. My wife needed that time to start waking up the prince, which involved several visits down the stairs where she was greeted in a variety of ways.
I think that all through the “4 year ordeal” I learned a few things. The first was that my reaction to my stepson’s unwillingness to get up for school was not something that I could have controlled or had any affect on. It was going to happen regardless of what I did or didn’t do. A 12-step group has a great saying, we can’t control people places or things and had I remembered that I could have saved myself a lot of aggravation and resentment. The second thing I learned, stay out of it! Reducing my ego to just bystander would have taken one volatile element out of the whole affair. Had I refrained from my two cents the situation at worst would have been no different but most likely it would have run itself out of energy much sooner. It’s just like any argument when one person doesn’t respond in kind the argument dies a much quicker death. In this case the third by product would have allowed me my own piece of mind. There was no imminent danger to either my wife or stepson’s health, so why not excuse myself from the equation. I could have focused on consoling my wife and patting my son on the shoulder to
tell him I loved him. I can’t tell you how many times I allowed myself to get caught up in every vignette that was performed in front of me. This obviously was from something in my past that evoked silent memories of some torture I had long since buried. Perhaps with my stepson I was merely reenacting what I thought I was trying to control.
I saw in my stepson a very well liked young man. The girls used to fawn over him, but he was oblivious to most of them. Because of his maturity his friends in high school were 2 years older and although they appreciated his company, convention ruled out romance with a younger boy older girl. There were a few exceptions and some of his female liaisons were short lived. My only guess was they did not live up to his maturity, which was beyond his years. His cousins both older were helpful entrees to high schoolers that were older. That proved to be a negative as when they graduated his pool of friends was diluted. This made going to school even more difficult and my wife and I lamented he hadn’t gone to public school.
But getting to some of the reasons as to why getting up for school was such a challenge for him. It wasn’t necessary that I tried to correct his behavior. His choices to go or not to go were not compelling enough for him like in my time at school, which left no choice. My wife pointed out that since we weren’t the cause of my son’s absence and tardiness. She didn’t make him dress funny. There was nothing we could do in our behavior to change his. We had no control over the reasons for his not wanting to attend school so in the end there wasn’t anything we could have done to change the outcome to the out come we wished for.
I look back on those years and the distance I felt towards him was very apparent even though most of our interaction was pleasant and courteous. He was too old for me to become his dad because his biological father and he were going through a very acrimonious time so it was impossible for me to fit into a “father slot”. I had to be satisfied that he was in a more stable environment that was not filled with his parents arguing. He was in essence safe at home free from, arguments and two people that didn’t want to be together.
Dealing with the dirty room. I remember my dad telling me after I left the house for military college how dirty my sister’s room was. In fact I remember a Newsday feature "The 10 dirtiest bedrooms". I think my sister Nancy might have qualified as #1. My dad was always berating me to clean up my room when I lived at home. Then after I had left he would tell my sisters why couldn’t you keep your room immaculate like your brother?
Maybe you can identify with me looking into your stepchild’s or even your child's bedroom and be aghast at the mosaic of dirty clothes decorating the floor and every piece of furniture including under and on top of their bed. Not to mention being unable to count the number of half empty glasses containers and silverware strewn about.
When my eldest stayed with us early in our relationship because she and her boyfriend had no place to canoodle, she rivaled my sister’s room in short order. This was responsible for most of my torture in the early going. My middle daughter Heather during her college days was not as bad as my sister Nancy but it still looked like a hotel room with every garment and any place but hung up or in a drawer. You may have heard this before but here it is again- just shut the door. What you can’t see won’t hurt you. This is one instance where ignorance is bliss. My wife would naturally go in there and clean make the bed remove the dishes and glasses because she knew how much I hated it. She because of my resentment would constantly rush in after my stepdaughter had vacated for parts unknown and clean up. I used to say that she was just enabling them to be sloppy when in fact she was just trying to balance the love or her children and keeping me happy. As soon as I stopped looking my wife stopped cleaning. Viola! I used to joke that her kids lived at a bed and breakfast, which included lunch and dinner.
I remember my first bath that my mom allowed me to take myself. The feeling was great, but the pressure was great as well. I had to remember those places that dirt hid, like behind my ears. I knew that I was in there longer than any bath my mom gave me, but I wanted her to be proud and happy that she trusted me to be in that bath tub unsupervised.
Most of us take showers now because a bath just doesn’t cut it in the world today that runs at break neck speed. Having said that the shower still is not my meditation room, it’s one dimensional- get clean! Now how could anyone use it for a different reason? Get in get out!
Flash forward 50 years; It’s late in the baseball season; we’re watching the World Series. . The Yanks are going for World Series #27. It’s a thin wall next to my perch as I hear the shower start up. 10-20-30-40 minutes later the water is still running. I turn to my wife and ask “what’s he doing washing a car in there?” For the life of me I can’t figure it out. I am in a slow burn, but how big a deal can I make of this? It’s not like I want to get into a power driven argument. It’s only water. What am I really, a conservationist? I couldn’t even complain about having a cesspool we had sewers. I’ll think of something. All I ended up with was resenting him and the only one it cost was me.
When I think about my stepson staying in the shower for an hour (this is an exaggeration maybe it was only 50 minutes.) I can easily build my story of resentment. I remember now that his being in the shower was right and true for him. It was not an act of defiance. My story is that he is wasting water and trying to piss me off. But I wrote that story. He thinks he is getting clean and spending time recuperating from the challenges of his day. Although at the time I couldn't see it that way.
