Summers of youth
Just today I was out for a walk. The warmth of summer on me. Came across two teenage boys playing basketball. I thought man, they’re loving life right now. It’s July. They’re out of school. These really are the best days of youth.
Then a question came into my thoughts.
What were the summers of my youth really like?
I tend to believe they were the best of times. But that’s an automated belief I hold without giving it any quality thought.
I decided to dedicate the rest of my walk to thinking about my summers.
It turned out to be a revealing experiment.
I concluded the following:
The best were between the ages of 4 and 9. The reason is because these summers were filled with family time. Family and friends coming and going, non stop action adventure trips. And I wasn’t responsible for planning any of it. I was just there and it was awesome. Pippy Park and Randy Pearcy’s Hockey School are two activities that stand out as delightfully memorable.
My age 10 and 11 summers were also fantastic. This is when I had found my friend group - my gang - and we banged around Bonavista unleashed. Sleeping out in tents every other night. Girls alcohol and drugs (GAD) hadn’t reached us yet - so our social lives buzzed beautifully innocently and simply. That said, I wasn’t truly comfortable in my own skin, I was very passive, shy, afraid, I died to fit in and be accepted by people I perceived as cooler than me. A little garden of self doubt began to grow. First experience with these doubts and insecurities shade a little gray over otherwise wonderful summers.
My age 12 to 16 summers weren’t great at all. They were ok. This was surprising to realize today as I automatically assumed the teenage boys playing basketball were surely loving life right now. I wondered why these summers were just ok and not great…REASONS:
My body hadn’t caught up with my mind in terms of puberty. I may have been 15 but I looked 8. This didn’t help at all with that burning desire to fit in. I was often told to leave because I wasn’t old enough to be there - even when I was old enough to be there. That was embarrassing and painful.
Our gang began to fizzle out. Damn near half began their professional hockey careers, spending weeks at a time travelling all over the province for elite summer hockey camps of which I was not invited. I remember being very lonely during these hot summer days. The boys were not in town (Thin Lizzy). I started to wrestle with another kind of feeling: inadequacy. Feeling I should be doing something better. Like what I had, or what I was doing, was not good enough. By this age the Pippy Park days were over. I felt sad about that - I felt like I was old - like I had grown up - and I had this weird nostalgic yearning for my childhood years to come back. I didn’t understand there were lots more fun wild exciting years coming up just around the corner. I thought it was all over. It’s both funny and sad to look back at this.
GAD came onto the scene towards the end of this time period and I wasn’t comfortable with G A or D. I wasn’t excited by any of it. I just wasn’t ready for it. Not mentally ready and especially not physically ready and the fact that I wasn’t physically ready set me back mentally.
My age 17 summer was the first summer out of high school and this was a pretty good one, despite a few obstacles. My friend gang had totally fallen apart. Half the bys were playing hockey full time on the mainland now. The other half had moved to St. John’s. I was stuck in Bonavista and I got a summer job working at Foodland. My first real job. This was nice because it gave me something to do. So I was working in the day and drinking beer at night. I had grown a bit more comfortable with GAD. A couple years experience. I even had a little girlfriend that summer. A good looking one at that. This elevated my status a bit around town (the notion of status being another idea I was just getting familiar with, unconsciously of course). By the end of the summer my little girlfriend dumped me and I made a few poor choices in the aftermath of that and hurt a few people a little bit. I was just starting to understand personal actions as they relate to personal consequence and my power as a privileged boy in the process of becoming a privileged man. I also started to understand the temptation of running away. Towards the end of that summer I felt my reputation around town had mildly expired from cutie next door everyone loves to just another local asshole. I was living my own Britney Spears song. I’m not. That. Innocent. I’m being too hard on myself, here, I know. Maybe 2 people didn’t like me anymore. But 2 people was plenty enough to have me running away in shame (a need to be liked by everyone another prevailing feeling I struggle with to this day). At the end of the summer I moved to Clarenville to attend CONA. That drive up Route 230 — September 2005 it was — 20 years ago, big boy — marked the end of my youth and the beginning of my adult life.
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What do I take away from this?
Well, with respect to being a writer and poet, any sort of self analysis like this is all grist for the mill.
With respect to being a father and my daughter Rosemary, I’m going to make sure she gets every ounce of quality family time she deserves. Family trips and outings with lots of people coming and going, smiling, laughing, and being together. Hopefully by fostering this sort of family vibe Rosemary will experience quality connection (the opposite of isolation/loneliness), a healthy sense of self worth, community, and a sense of belonging -- all things that I lacked (upon reflection). To be clear, I don’t believe I missed these things -- I had them -- I just lacked them. On a scale that manifested into psychological counter-productivity of which I have to constantly overcome in order to get along. Confidence, self-worth, fear, sadness, longing, loneliness, nostalgia, etc etc etc. Normal human being type stuff. And we haven’t even touched on the fact that I’m an idiot.
I felt like I had to grow up and there came a time too early in my youth where I felt like it was totally lame to spend time with family. I’m going to make sure Rosemary doesn’t feel this way. I’ll do that by talking to her and letting her know why we’re doing what we’re doing when we’re doing them. Fun will always be on the front burner. The reason we do anything in our privileged-beyond-belief society is to have fun. If we’re not having fun then what the hell are we even doing? But after that there will be a slew of back burner reasons driving our actions that are emotionally deep in nature and I’m not going to shy away from telling Rosemary about them. I may even share a few stories from my youth.
