Title Unknown

The Trouble With Growing Up

Dear friend,

I must’ve been about thirteen, maybe twelve, walking into town with my Dad. By the time I was fourteen I’d been struck with excruciating embarrassment. It was bad enough being seen out on my own. My face had started to blush uncontrollably. Sometimes it would be because I was afraid I’d start blushing waiting in line at a till. It was worse when it was a girl I thought looked pretty, but it could just as well be someone the same age as my Mam. It could happen most places. Standing in the corridor at break times was pretty bad.

That’s why it must’ve been around twelve, because I was really proud to be walking with him. I loved him and wanted him to know it somehow, so as we walked past the welfare centre bar lounge — half full by one on a Saturday afternoon — I told him:

“I can’t wait till I’m able to take you there for a pint!”

“It’ll come around quicker than you think,” was all he said.

And he was right too.

But by the time I was old enough, I didn’t want to impress him anymore. I’d worked out he was full of bluster and hadn’t a clue what he was doing with his life. All I wanted was to get as far away from him as possible and start a new life and not turn out like him.

I still feel the same way about it now. My Dad was a foolish man. He admitted that after he died, but in life that was too hard for him. In the East they’d call him “matter-drenched” or something like that.

It means you’re entranced by the physical world and your own ego. You don’t think anything else exists and you’re in the unfortunate position of being right all the time about everything. Not only that, your knowledge of the cosmos is so complete no one can surprise you with anything.

Me and my Dad started to get on better once he started seeing birds and hearing their song where none of us could. I knew it was Nana singing to him so he wouldn’t be so afraid of what was coming up for him.

He lost everything.

But that’s another story.

Today for me is about shedding the dogged delusion that I’ll reach an age when I know everything and that somehow I will grow up.

I won’t grow up — especially if that means being right all the time and having even one tiny speck of this vast mystery figured out.

That is the trap as in “Don’t grow up it’s a trap!” - like you see on posters and t-shirt and greeting cards.

So that’s what today and tomorrow and all of the days following are about for me: ditching this idea that I am supposed to have it all figured out.

Chiara and me, we needed to hang out with the trees on Hampstead Heath today. She found hers and snuggled back into its rough skin.

“It’s a very friendly tree,” she said as it began to rain and we listened to the sound of the water on the fallen leaves.

The droplets were so fine they stood on the surface of my navy wool peacoat and it took a while to work out if we were getting wet.

Before sundown the sky was luminous. Clouds like the after-images you get staring into a tungsten lamp. The traffic was bad on the way back but my phone had told me it would be. You can track so much data with your phone now it’s crazy.

The thing for me today is not to have my phone control me and to remember that no matter what age we are, we’re figuring it out as we go.

You can buy a book and sit under a tree with Plato and have him explain it to you the way he learned it from Socrates.

Growing up is not a trap.

Believing stuff about being a grown-up that isn’t true is a trap.

I feel embarrassed more often than I care to admit.

I don’t want anyone thinking I don’t love my Dad. That’s the trouble.

I always loved him.

It hurts to love someone you don’t like.

But it doesn’t stop you loving them.

I’m not a kid anymore.

I guess growing up isn’t so bad after all.

Till tomorrow

Love

Mikey