Lately I’ve been looking back to the summer I turned 17. This is the summer Sticks will turn 17 and I suppose comparisons are inevitable.
The heady sense of adventure and independence sticks to this day. My best friend had a car and a rebellious streak. She and I would drive down to Sunset Boulevard and cruise with the top to her Mustang down, honking and waving to the rest of the cruiser community just hanging out and loving the warm weather, beach tan glow, and the sheer power of being young and on the town.
It was also the summer of the first serious boyfriend and all of the wonderful, delicious times that go with that. Walking with our arms around each other, kissing in the middle of Brand Boulevard and not caring who saw us, eating ice cream with furious abandon before it melted, licking off the drops with lascivious intent.
That summer was the mid-70′s, the waning age of Aquarius and waxing age of women’s lib, the age when anything was possible and even good girls were doing “IT”, because we could. Erica Jong said we could, the bra-burners said we should, and opportunities were plentiful and easy, mostly because our parents either didn’t believe we would avail ourselves of them or didn’t care if we did — I still am not sure which it was.
Yet, most of us didn’t. There was a streak of fear in us: We remembered the smartest girl in the class leaving school in the middle of her junior year and not coming back after wearing a tent dress that seemed to grow larger with the changes in season — nothing said and everything known. Lisa and I (my best friend with the rockin’ Mustang) would whisper about what we’d do and how we’d do it, but the truth was that I was terrified to cross that line and screw up whatever future I had ahead of me…so I didn’t, for a very long time. I managed to get through that summer and through the 18th birthday before giving it up and giving in.
This seventeenth summer is very different. I don’t really even know how to write about this. Part of me wants to lay it all out there; part of me wants to hold it back because writing makes it real. If I don’t write about this, if I am silent, I can turn away and not deal with it. Not deal with the fact that this is likely the last real summer I’ll have with Sticks before he turns to building his own life and opportunities in his own way. Not deal with the reality that the lines are so blurred with regard to sex and relationships for teenagers today that they don’t have the same silent alarms that I had and run very real risks of life-changing consequences.
Is it a good thing that they have no fear? Are they healthier than we were? I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that even the possibility of taking risks that could completely change his future makes me crazy. Discovery: It’s not a possibility; it’s a reality.
I want to scream at the girlfriend, remind her that she holds all the control even if he has no impulse control. But she wouldn’t listen — by her own account she cannot imagine life without him and would do whatever she had to do to stay with him. (Aside: Why, I do not know. I love him with every inch of my being but he’s a quirky single-minded kid who really isn’t great boyfriend material, to be honest. Not one iota of romance in the kid…)
Are those words meant to strike fear into the hearts of meddling mothers? If so, I can honestly say that they do. Deep fear. Because when someone says they’d do ANYTHING and that’s combined with a kid who already struggles with impulse issues, danger lurks around the corner.
I look at him sprawled across the bed asleep peacefully and wish for the days when the toys were trucks and tools. I can let go of the little boy because I love the person he’s becoming, but I am keenly aware that letting go doesn’t stop me from wanting the best for him, of being afraid for him, of fighting the urge to put him under lock and key until he’s about 30, of being completely frustrated at the easy way the words “love” are turned around into “sex” and “lust”.
And it’s not just about him. I really like the girlfriend, but am completely frustrated with her willingness to surrender her identity and allow herself to be defined by who she’s with instead of who she is. Why doesn’t she see her own value without tangling it up with his?
In many ways this seems to be a tangled-up mess of the worst of two generations — the generation of the past, where women were defined by who they married, who they loved, who they raised, and the generation of today, with unlimited choices and options, the expectation of having sex because they can, but still mangling the reasons with the idea that they are somehow gifting their partner with something irrevocable, something committed.
This is rambly, so sorry. Like I said, I’m not even sure how to say it and sort it, much less blog it. All I know is that I would never, ever want any child of mine to have to make the choices they might have to make because they acted on impulse without regard to what consequences might be waiting around the bend. The hardest part of all of this: Knowing that what I want is inconsequential.
