I had lunch yesterday with a good friend; we have lunched every month for the last 18 years. To say she knows me well would be an understatement. So when during the course of our conversation, she commented that a tramatic event from two years ago took some of "the fight" out of me, I have to admit to having had a sense of strange surprise. It is true, of course. And the fact that she noticed made me simultaneously grateful that my pain and suffering didn't go unnoticed, but also, very sad. I've been permanently altered by something beyond my control--not by cancer, not by disability, not by an act of God--but by man.

Everyday, I get to relive the betrayal of my fellow human beings. Every. Damn. Day.

But I've worked hard to overlook the obvious. I've worked hard to be able to get up in the morning. I've worked hard to keep continuity in my relationships with friends and family. I've worked hard at living each day without breaking down in grief and misery at the losses suffered from that one event. And it's worse than cancer, or disability--even the loss of people we love--because the loss I endured, and continue to, is not one that time can heal. Or anything else. This particular loss created a negative and permanent conundrum of a whirlpool in not only my existence, but the existence of all those connected to me. 

And I hate that fact. Hate it because I fear it. Fear it because I'm powerless to change it. Completely powerless. 

This is why the Buddhists encourage acceptance of impermanence. If you accept impemanence, you are no longer vulnerable. If you understand impermanence, you increase your capacity for compassion. It's win-win, without the inclusion of any tiger-blood whatsoever. 

No one understands or accepts impermanence better--I used to be a runner, a fencer, a dancer. No more. Not because I'm lazy or undisciplined, but because my left leg essentially no longer works. I still use it, of course--kind of like peg-legged Ahab out of Melville's Moby Dick. I snowshoe. I hike. I bike. I canoe. I swim. I will even walk a half-marathon this year. But I can't run. I can't fence. And though I attempt to dance, when you can't move one of your two legs, let's just say even Elaine on Seinfeld can do better....  

But none of that impermanence saddens me. I wasn't struck down by some drunken idiot. Or even by God. Cancer happens. A lot. Approximately one-third of the American population is diagnosed with various forms of cancer each year. And there's no one to blame. Disease, disability and death--along with taxes--are simply part of the human condition. You can get over such impermanence with a hearty constitution. It won't break you. No, that kind of irreparable act takes the careful consideration of our fellow man...and woman.

The saying what doesn't kill you makes you stronger sounds inspiring, an exclamation of the human spirit even. But a person with that kind of strength and integrity is consistently eaten alive by their own kind. And when we're excreted on the other side, we're treated with as much respect as any other excrement.

Kind of tough to "bounce back" from something like that....

Meanwhile, those still loyal to us--before we were turned into shite, that is--those who aren't intimidated by our new stink, sit around wondering how long it will take before we disintegrate. Because truly, there is no hope. Even with cancer, there's hope. Not so much with this level of man-made condition. 

You can eat well. You can exercise. You can floss. You can meditate. But none of it will make you healthy again. There is no medicine, no magic pill, either. You get to rot, like disgarded feces on the side of the road. And after a while, even you begin to hate yourself. Because you can't change anything. You can't fix it. And no one else can either. 

That's what being broken means.

And by God, as I sit here today, the words of my good friend sticking to the roof of my still-open mouth, those who did this to me will understand that there is no one and no thing on this great planet that will stop me from telling the world who you are and what you did.

You may not believe in God. You may not believe in anything. But you will. 

And unfortunately for those cruel (yet sadly not unusual) individuals--unlike my frail human psyche--my integrity remains fully intact. Would that I could say the same for all of us.... 

Prepare yourselves. 

For the thing about shite is, it easily sticks to the bottom of your shoe. And even after you scrape it off, it lingers.




 

A child of the 80's, I listened to Axel Rose strain his already strained voice when he crooned the words "Home Sweet Home" in the Guns N Roses tune of the same name. I remember listening to the song while driving with my friend Patti and her boyfriend, Rich. We were all about 17. It was summer. Rich had this navy-blue Chevy Blazer...with a sun-roof, I think. The windows were down. The sun was bright. And we all sang with Axel's pitch and volume, "I'm on my way, I'm on my waayaya...home sweet home...." Close to two and a half decades later, I still like the song. But now, it's for different reasons.

Lately, I've been thinking about "home" quite a bit. I used to call Boston my home; it was where I grew up. First, in Dorchester with Marky-Mark Wahlberg, and later, on the comedy-scene at Nick's with Dane Cook. In between. I ran into a few people you might know--Matt Damon and Ben Affleck--not to name-names...or, that they'd remember mine. ;)

I loved Boston, and still do. But soon--very soon--I will have lived in other places longer than I ever lived there. Is Boston, then, still my "home"?

I'm a die-hard member of Red Sox Nation...it's so bad, I can't even watch my team on television--I get too upset. And though a baseball fan in general, and one of those crazy people racking up major league ballpark visits (I'm up to 12 in the last six years), I can never watch a live Red Sox game outside of Fenway...because, well, I tend to get into verbal altercations with the other fans.

Of course, though not as crazy about other sports as I am about baseball, I will never relent that the best football team are the Pats, the best hockey team--the Bruins, and the best basketball team--the Celtics.

I drive like a Bostonian--even after all this time. Rotaries? Bring it! Driving in the break-down lane? No problem. Rush-hour traffic? I'll go back to my old CHS cheer for that one: "Be aggressive, B-E-aggressive...."

My Boston attitude is still very much in tact, too. We act as though we're the greatest thing walking on the outside; on the inside, we'd give everything we have to a perfect stranger. Strong handshakes, laughter from the gut and a general joie de vivre--even if with an edge--are all part of the Bostonian-persona...and mine.

Summer isn't summer without the cold Atlantic of Cape Cod, where there's something extra special about the light, and where you can swim with seals off the cliffs of Chatham in July, and with whales around P-town in August.

And the accent? Well, I do sometimes relapse when I'm angry but I coached myself early on to speak accentless--not because I was ashamed of dropping my R's--but because I somehow knew that I wouldn't live my life there.
 
Some of my best childhood memories are taking the T into "town" with my grandmother and stopping at "the Woolworth" for an ice cream soda before walking over to the Commons to watch the swan boats and feed the ducks.

My entire family is buried in Boston--everyone who ever made it to the States, whether from the Emerald-shores of Eire or the sun-dappled coastline of Ukraine. And yet, I'm not quite sure my roots are planted there.

I've fallen in love with so many wonderful cities in my lifetime: San Francisco and Sydney are two of my favorites. But "home" is still a mystery.

Not the concept, but the place. Is home my children? My partner? My friends? Or is it a geographic location--a pin-point on some obscure map?

When it comes down to it, while my house is a home, mine still rests beyond the confines and impermanence of humanity. It's not a place I've ever even experienced. There's no tell-tale signs that connect me there--not an accent, or a love of a particular sports team, or even the way I drive. And in a time when everything from grocery shopping to cellphones track our every move, our every like and dislike, even pin-pointing our exact location...it's good to know that there is still some mystery left. 

For now.

Adult children. All those cute, smiling faces looking at you with wonder will one day gaze on you with a kind of mixture of pity and fear--pity because suddenly all your faults seem to be glaringly obvious and fear because they don't want to be pitied one day for the same reasons. It's called growing up. And it happens to the best of us. But how does it happen? Do you one day wake up and say, "I'm all grown up now. Gee, thanks Mom and Dad!" and skip merrily down some imaginary lane? If only. No, it's a gradual, transitional process that, believe it or not, does call for a new kind of etiquette. A new kind of etiquette because the younger adult children today are from what Dr. Jean Twenge from the University of San Diego calls "Gen Me." 

The thumbnail sketch on Gen Me stems from a shift in social attitude primarily during the 80's and into the 90's that created a new version of the "Me Generation," as Baby Boomers were often called. But in this version, Donna Reed wasn't your mommy. And Ward Cleaver wasn't your dad. Instead, children had parents, teachers, coaches, and other role models telling them they were super-duper special, just because they existed. I was one of those parents. Everyone gets a trophy; every individual is important. We were the children of the children who witnessed the end of modernism and the beginning of postmodernism--an earlier sketch on the history of postmodernism can be found under the March 2011 archives. Ultimately, we were unwittingly touting the latest, greatest social perspectives. Typical dinner conversation during the Reagan-era didn't often include social theory. But the buck has to stop somewhere, and etiquette isn't about the blame-game. While we may have blown it as parents, giving our children applause for standing still--it's no stretch to see how, as our children "grew up" they began to realize that we were not only lying to them, but that, by doing so, we were total and complete schmucks. Either way, it makes for an odd combination of entitlement mixed with overwhelming fear of failure--and that's where etiquette offers everyone redemption.

Etiquette is all about social decorum; but in the 21st century, society isn't behaving the way it did when women wore white gloves and hats and men wore a shirt and tie--both as a matter of course. Today, there are no social "rules." Holding the door for a woman isn't expected, even if she's pregnant, even if she's disabled, even if she's struggling with a baby carriage. People don't even really say thank you anymore--it's more like, "thnx." They can't even spell the word, let alone say it. The art of the thank you note seems practically dead though everyone seems to be obsessed with typing on tiny keyboards--in restaurants, while driving, in parties--let's put it this way: Our social expectations have dropped...by quite a lot. But there has to be some kind of social recognition of what is decent, and what is not. With adult children, how do you handle such moments...like when, and how, to say goodbye?

College is the natural time to begin that separation, but in the 21st century, college isn't always an option given the drop in the dollar and rise in education costs. The 5-year plan for a 4-year degree is a thing of the past--7-years is the average time spent in college for Gen Me to achieve a 4-year degree. And even if college is part of your adult-child's experience, once they've graduated from college--what then? Joblessness is at an all-time high. Unless your student has some kind of in like knowing Donald Trump or Richard Branson, or, is in a "bottom-line" field like computer engineering, it may be possible that your adult child will have separated through college but now, must return to the "nest." Even the students who choose to go on to graduate school don't always have better luck...again, unless they went on to med school or law school. Your bottom-line is this: You may very well have a Gen Me adult child living in your house for (many) years to come.

As horrible as that may sound to those of you who are the adult children--as well as the parents--with a little bit of etiquette, things don't have to become horribly stressful.

Recognize your adult child as an individual; respect their privacy and space. The fine line comes when you begin judging that adult child's efforts, or lack thereof. Part of living at "home" means that, in fact, your parents will expect you to make contributions to not only the household, but to your own life. As parents, we have to understand our limits and express those to our adult children in a calm and consistent way. If having your adult child move home is not something you can deal with--it doesn't make you less parental, just more honest than most. Let your adult child know that their moving back home cannot be forever; that you expect them to look for work with as much zeal as possible, and if the job of their dreams isn't available...time to consider the same stop-gap measures that many other jobless Americans with college degrees are considering: Retail.

But what is the appropriate etiquette when your adult child sleeps all day, eats your food, and leaves small messes behind in every room they enter? What is the appropriate etiquette when a month (or three) go by and your adult child's less-than-zealous job search has come up empty?

When your adult child returns home, the first thing you have to do is explain as calmly, clearly and consistently as possible your reasonable expectations for their stay, including things like your limits on the length of their stay, their behavior while living with you, their monetary contributions and other household contributions--like cleaning their own spaces, doing their own laundry and helping with larger jobs like vaccuming the house once a week--and, of course, that you expect them not to sleep all day but be diligently searching for a job. This way, when an expectation falls short, you have a starting point for your conversation about next-steps. Because you're the parent, you will appear judgemental to your adult child...and that's okay. Make sure you reinforce your love and support and try to find ways that won't continue to enable your adult child's failure, but help them gain more confidence--like finding an alternate place to stay until gainful employment can be acheived.  

Your adult child is not your room-mate, even if they pay "rent." Undoubtedly, unless they're coming up with half your mortgage payment and half of all the other household expenses, you are paying the lion's share of theirs. What the adult child needs to understand is that no matter who you are in society, any healthy, intelligent individual who takes charity to live without making good-faith efforts to gain financial independence--even from their parents--will always be judged. That's what made America so different from other countries...and still does. America provided EVERYONE with the opportunity to get educated, find a good job, start a business, make a million dollars...or not--it was up to the given individual, not their caste or lack of aristocratic heritage. Your adult child has those same choices and opportunities today, even if it costs more as the dollar drops.

So though the adult child may balk at your casting judgement on their efforts, if you established reasonable parameters early on, a calm discussion of your consistent expectations can ensue. However, it's not always reasonable to expect that your adult child will respect your expectations, even if they were in agreement early on. Gen Me has narcissistic tendencies...which blurs with the sociopathic--or being socially-ruthless to meet one's own ends. In such a circumstance, it's good to try to use an objective third-party to negotiate the situation. Life is hard, no matter how social etiquette is applied.

As your adult child matures, part of their best example of living a successful, independennt life is through you. You may judge your adult child not so much based on their individuality, but what their behavior reflects about you. Don't take their failure, or success, personally. Instead, celebrate your adult child's character and integrity--those are the traits you most contributed to.