Missing the Teens

You may recall that I have worked with teenagers on Friday evenings for about 2 years now. The kids are aged 13 to 17 and have been enrolled in a rehabilitation program for problem abusers of alcohol and drugs. Mostly drugs. Group size has varied widely throughout the years from 5 to 20. The optimum size seems to be about 10, but that depends on the personalities involved and how difficult some of them can be. Especially when they find cohorts within the group!

We have taken a summer furlough from this activity to shorten the day for the kids and let them enjoy the summer months without being tied down to a Friday evening session. That frees the two volunteers who work with them on those evenings, including me.

I do enjoy not having to battle rush hour traffic, especially on a Friday evening. And I appreciate relaxing at home with a pizza and some entertaining reading or TV. But the other day I was thinking back on our sessions with the kids. It was then I realized I missed our interaction. I missed them.

I hope my work with the kids is helpful to them. Meaningful and effective. I don’t know this is true so I must continue to hope it is so. The other part of that equation is I miss their influence on my life. You see they challenged me in ways I had long forgotten about. Seeing life through the eyes of youth is one challenge I had forgotten. Another is the prism of expanding life experience and personal understanding that coming of age years bring to consciousness.

Remember those days in your own life? Recall the confusion, chaos and truly weird feelings you had? One question on my mind back then is – ‘Is this normal?’  I constantly compared by experiences with other experiences to test their realness, elasticity, conformability, whatever. With a little gumption and a whole lot of trust/courage, I asked friends about the same things and we compared notes!

That’s how I grew up. Same for you I’ll bet! This is not rocket science, but it is more important to us individuals than rocket science isn’t it? So too for the teens on Friday evenings. They are transforming from childhood to adulthood with the extra added attraction of drugs and alcohol suffused with sexual awakening and sexual performance. Zounds! And Egad!! I can relate to the sexual awakening but not the performance part. And I can’t relate to the drugs and alcohol. In fact, never drugs; only a mild curiosity.

My mind was on other matters. Education was one. Music was another – classical forms, not pop! And reading, science, study; the more I think about those days the more I now realize I was trying to make intellectual sense about the world and my life. It was how I was built. It made me a nerd back in those days. And it was OK. Nerd-dom provided me cover for other struggles I couldn’t get my head around. One, of course, was a growing awareness that I must be gay. That term was not in use back then, homosexual was the term then. And it was mightily mysterious. In my mind it was also forbidden because no one talked of it. That was my cue to keep my mouth shut.

And I did. For many, many years.

In that environment I was alone. In the solitude I thought, wrote, studied, read. I delved into music on a serious plane. I observed relationships from afar. I took walks in the rich nature of the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. I took long bike rides in the woods and along less traveled back roads. It was a magical place. It helped me focus on expansive thoughts. It allowed me a means to acculturate to the real world.

It did not make me a social butterfly! Not by a long shot. I was so out in left field that my contemporaries left me alone. Some of the girls thought I was cute (so they said) and they protected me from the jocks and greasers of the day. So I had space from the bullies as my grades and class work excelled. They left me alone to be me.

Oh, I feared being bullied. It was never far from my mind. So I learned to have cover and be less a target. These chameleon-like skills served me well as I proceeded into adulthood via college and university life. Unfortunately the cover shielded me from honestly facing my gayness and dealing with it. That’s how marriage and fatherhood came into my life. More on that at another time.

For now, this piece is about the teens. They help me remember what it was like being a teen. The memories of clammy palms, nervous twitches and self doubt come flooding back! With that recall I can relate with them better.

At least I hope so! If correct I will listen to them acutely and hear their yearnings and doubts. Those I can address. Those I can help them with.

For now I must wait for September to resume our work together. And surprisingly I find myself looking forward to it.

July 8, 2015