Lettuce and Fireflies

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.