Life Beyond Self

I met a girl the other evening. A teen – 16 – sweet and innocent in so many ways of life. A drug addict with complications with alcohol as well. Behaviorally she is normal and an American teen. A high school student not much interested in school. A young life with little thought of what she wants to do in the future. So far, nothing much makes her a monster. Nothing much makes her different from the norm, either. That latter point may sound odd from a middle class retiree; but I am learning. I am observing and realizing that norms today are different from the norms I experienced when I was 16.

But that’s the way of the world these days, isn’t it?

I think back to when I was 16 and I wondered about sex. I wondered how people ‘did it’. I wondered how I would do it. I didn’t know. I had feelings but didn’t know much about them. Such were not taught in class but they were talked about among students. And some acted upon the talk. They experimented. They fooled around. And a girl got pregnant. Much was then said and done to ignore the pregnancy and cover it up. And somehow we all got the message that sex was taboo and was left untouched.

And untouchable. That’s the message I got. Don’t talk sex. Don’t think sex. Sex is wrong. Sex is dirty. And sometimes there was a ‘wink wink’ that signaled another message. Those moments confused my 16-year-old self.

I thought again of the 16 year old girl addict. Surely she thinks of sex as do her contemporaries. And surely she thinks about sex in ways entirely different from me in my day of wondering back then.

I asked her what she wanted to focus her life on in the future. She responded with a shrug of her shoulders and a slight sideways motion of her head. She clearly didn’t know how to answer. I said it didn’t matter; no pressure. You have time to work through all of that later.

Later that night I formed a picture of this young lady in my mind. She was sitting on a bed in a brightly flowered bedroom, pleasant and comforting. But then the image closed in on her like that of a cell.

My thoughts turned quickly to the time I briefly felt of volunteering at a local youth detention center. It serves young women, girls really. They are there for serious felony violations with a strong hitch of behavioral mental health. They are dissociative of society. They are misfits. They are locked up and safe from society; and society is safe from them.

They sit in cells of bleakness. The future beckons little and what does leak through seems quite institutional. There are locks on the doors and windows. From outside those enclosures. Outside the facilities are locked down as well. And high steel fences with razor wire spirals topping the fences. This is a prison facility really. To protect both sides of society I guess.

How different is this experience from the 16-year old girl addict sitting in her bedroom without phone, without friends, located in her father’s new home in a new suburb and starting school the next day at a new institution in which she knows no one? How locked away must she feel? How isolated is she? In reality and in her own mind?

Sobering isn’t it? It is to me. So alone. So rootless. A mother that is angry with her for her drug use. A home split by divorce more than once. A step mother, another step mother. More divorces. Atomized family structure. A brother who uses drugs. Denial within the family of the drugs. Dysfunction aplenty.

Yet there is connection. Love of a kind exists. It is hard to put asunder. Mother love. Father love. Family connections. Significant generations of family living far out of state. Dysfunction groping for footing. Wanting but not yet finding.

This young woman has a far road to follow toward health and happiness. I wonder how that road can be made easier for her and yet instructive? I wonder how others can reach beyond themselves to touch her life and nurture her toward something better?

I wonder. I wonder if we can entice her to reach outside of herself and connect with another human being who needs help and affirmation. Would this be possible for her? Would this in turn affirm herself and pull her toward a brighter future?

Perhaps we will know more. Meanwhile we can hope.

September 5, 2016