I don’t enjoy reruns unless they’re guaranteed to provide a laugh, as laughter is always welcome given the torrent of shit we face which ain’t so funny. And anything could be considered a rerun if it’s close to or exactly as remembered and garners a similar, if not identical reaction.
But as I sat in the auditorium on consecutive days watching the same exact activity I wasn’t laughing, instead falling into an unsettling mental state.
Being on the “back nine”, as someone recently pointed out, I didn’t need to be a golfer to know exactly what it meant, and after some quick math but no actuarial tables, I figured I was on or approaching the 14th hole. My score is irrelevant as I have no interest in a do-over to either improve or re-experience anything as my life has been great despite wishing I could jump into a Time Machine and change a couple of things here and there. But the repercussions of doing that would be unknown and might cause unwanted collateral damage to things I’m happy with. No matter the potential gain, loss aversion thinking rules.
One thing I wouldn’t change is becoming a suburbanite. My wife and I were city kids but once our daughter arrived we headed east to provide her and any future offspring with a different kind of life. Not that we ever felt deprived but we thought suburbia could offer something better with a side of “different”.
We swapped our brand-new Queens condo for a reclamation project. Perhaps my latent home improvement fetish, egged on by my father, a kitchen contractor with a not so latent fetish, made me believe there was some glamour to it, the fantasy quickly overwhelming us. We ripped things out, tore things down and put new everything in, including a free kitchen, but did not move in before installing an alarm system, my urban paranoia alive and well. When our son made his appearance we looked for a bigger house but failed and instead did some construction. Then more construction. This was to be our American Dream.
But suburbia isn’t only about the house. We made good friends, as did our kids who made their way through the school system while participating in all the requisite sports and activities. We threw the also requisite parties, sent them to good camps and colleges, bought them cars and other stuff and married them off, all in compliance with proper suburban protocols we learned about as we went along. My wife and I never believed in “following the crowd”, and despite thinking some expectations were out of control we sometimes gave in and spoiled them because it was easier than fighting every battle.
After city stints, both kids made their way back to the ‘burbs, one with a live kid and the other with one in the oven nearly ready to be served, buying houses close to us requiring no latent fetish of any kind. Whether those become their American Dream is unknown but from early indications other things are beginning to look eerily familiar.
They now have two kids each, the oldest being five, so the activities are well underway, some driven out of the genuine belief the kids want to participate, others because they should participate and still others out of peer pressure, mostly parental. So there are innumerable, similar birthday parties the kids will never remember, soccer games and swim lessons they might or might not enjoy or serve as fuel for future athletic pursuits, music classes and dance classes…the latter the biggest racket of all.
Not because the kids don’t enjoy it but because most don’t do anything resembling dancing for years. Parents are coerced to get them started by 3 or they might fall behind, as though at 4 or 5 they would not catch up to their classmates who spent the previous year or two staring at the instructor or another kid while trying to figure out what to do. And the only goal is to get the kids ready to perform at the year-end recital garbed in a pricy costume they’ll never wear again, with many of the younger kids still staring at the instructor or other kids, if not crying or frozen in place. Pictures and movies are taken until the music ends and the kids are showered with applause. At the end of the recital the school owners congratulate all the students for their great performances, then beat the drum to register for the upcoming year. They then congratulate all the students who have spent 5, 7, 10, 12 or more years under their auspices as well as those who have aged out and must leave, with or without skills. That’s a lot of time and money with questionable payback.
So of course my two granddaughters attend different dance schools with recitals the same weekend smack in the middle of 2 beach days. Proper suburban protocol dictates one has to stay until the very end no matter when your particular darling was done, so I was stuck. Andby the second day, really fucking pissed, and I took to watching all the proud parents, grandparents who grandparent differently than I do and everyone else getting overly excited while I involuntarily slipped into hallucinations about my journey through the wilds of suburban parenthood.
Which included our daughter being one and done with dance and a few other activities and whether it will be the same for her daughter. And our son failing soccer, which his daughter is also doing when not staring into space on stage. Then I drifted into ruminating on the role of genetics in their future endeavors and our two grandsons encroaching on “activity age”. Which led to thinking about everything we went through which our kids will face with their suburban journey. Thus my unsettled, nearly catatonic state.
And then the lights went on and my wife, seated elsewhere with her sister, was shaking me…it was time to go. Just in the nick of time. What begins as a trickle…a party or playdate here, a class, absurd activity or sport there turns into a rush of overlapping and never-ending demands on time and money yielding varying levels of stress and fatigue. And that’s before any drama or big, expensive stuff, anticipated or not, regarding their houses and kids and keeping up with updated suburban protocols. Good thing, since if I had gotten that far I might not have woken up that easily if at all.
As I exited into the bright sunshine I burst out laughing. Not that I found the recital funny, but because I was being such an asshole. I still had the entire summer ahead of me and came to a realization. Watching the grandkids was entertaining in a weird way and only the beginning of much more to come so I better buckle up, shut up, take it all in and enjoy the remaining holes on my particular course without worrying about the score. And all the upcoming stuff…that’s on our kids, not us. We’re just passengers along for the ride.
So no reruns and no need for a Time Machine, maybe just a functioning remote control to make sure I keep finding some comedy in everything.
Or to turn things off for a bit if I can’t.