My seven year
old dawdled in the kitchen while I opened boxes and rattled pans in preparation
for dinner. His dark brown eyes followed my movements as I took out a head of
lettuce and unwrapped the cellophane. Amused by his attention, I began to add a
dramatic flair to my actions, stretching the time before the big moment that I
knew was to come.
I cleared
space on the counter and then gripped the head of lettuce in my hand, stem
toward the ceiling. I took a moment to adjust the green ball, balancing it just
so in my palm. With a glance at the quiet brown eyes still fastened upon me
with intense curiosity, I hefted the lettuce into the air, arcing it up,
around, and down, and slammed the stem squarely onto the counter.
My seven year
old erupted. He jerked backward, bubbling over with shouts of ecstatic laughter.
As I removed the neatly-separated stem, he hopped about the kitchen and crowed,
“I want to grow up, I want to grow up!”
To that small
lad, on that common day, the act of smashing a vegetable onto a countertop was
the absolute pinnacle of the glory that it is to be, at long last, an adult.
It is,
perhaps, a trait common among children everywhere…the longing to enter the
grand and mysterious world of the grownup. Those who have passed through the
portal into the realm of Adultness are bestowed with abilities and privileges
that glow with promise in the eyes of the as-yet uninitiated.
Driving cars,
controlling money, making decisions, indulging in bowls of ice cream after the
kids are in bed…the life of an adult is full of happy little perks that look
pretty darn good to the bright eyes peeking over the counter.
From the
other side, though, things can look different.
The seven
year old is now eighteen, a high school graduate preparing to leave home and head
off to college. His 40 hour a week summer job gets him out of bed at 5:30 in
the mornings. He pays taxes and is trying to decide whether to invest some of
his money for retirement and has to remember to let the dog out and feed the
cats before he goes to work. It’s a little taste of the serious business that
lies ahead, a sampling that some days leaves him shaking his head and wishing
he could go back to the not-yet-there days of childhood.
Adulting,
that’s the current word for it. Noun turned to verb turned back to noun,
“adult” has become not just something you are but something you do. Adulting is
serious work. Job, health, finances, home, relationships – good heavens, there
is nothing easy about this business of taking daily responsibility for a
laundry list of Really Important Stuff. I wager that there is many a day on
which most of us would gladly set down our burden of accountability and climb
back into our longing-for-adulthood childhood shell for a while.
It’s hard,
adulting. Sometimes mighty hard. It can wear you down. On days when expectation
hangs heavy on my shoulders and I count my failures on both hands, I sigh a
mighty sigh and wonder where the joy of life went and whether it will be coming
back.
And then I
make salad for supper, and I heft a head of lettuce in my hand, arcing it up,
down, and whump! onto the counter, and I remember the bright eyes and the
bouncing boy and realize that it’s right there in front of me, that elusive
joy. Right in my hand. I am a grownup. And I get to slam the lettuce.
Adulting is
undeniably difficult. But in the middle of difficulty there are moments. There
are tiny sparks like fireflies that light up your insides if only you notice
them. An unexpected laugh in the middle of an argument. A flash of solidarity
with an opponent. Pleasantly sore muscles after a day’s hard labor. The
satisfaction of folding a perfectly symmetrical peanut butter and jelly
half-sandwich for your grumpy child. Moments, blessed moments, that keep us
afloat and remind us that God is good and we are not alone.
I
remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land
of the living. Psalm 27:13
In the midst of the difficulty of adulting,
the presence of a loving and attentive God can fade into the background. Even
as we need Him more we remember Him less, busily chipping away at our days with
our tiny pickaxes, our faces set in determination mixed with exasperation mixed
with weariness. And yet He chooses to remain by our sides, showing us the cross
and claiming us as His. He loves His industriously adulting humans, loves us
enough to give us moments in our madness. Moments of heads of lettuce and
fireflies in the dark.
Good Lord,
let me see my life’s little moments of joy today. I’m going to be busy
adulting, and I think I’m gonna need ‘em.
First published in The Alpena News on June 23, 2018.
