TheBanyanTree: The Wonder Years

[Maria Gibson]

This could be said to be my second childhood with an emphasis on the 
teens.  At first I was thinking it was somewhere in the twenty 
somethings but the rebellion makes it a younger phase, I think.  Yeah, 
it's gotta be somewhere around seventeen.  My other seventeen saw me 
engaged and then married.  Finishing high school but writing my own 
notes and signing them Mrs. Gibson.  I was crazy in love and making 
plans to move a gazillion miles away to Japan to join a Marine husband.  
That one year, the seventeenth (the eighteenth for the technical among 
us) was filled with a great variety of things.  They were good and 
exciting, a whirlwind of new.  What they weren't was carefree.  I had 
only recently been released from step father hell but pulled into a 
whirlpool of mother back in school in order to get off welfare and two 
teen brothers who were big trouble.  There was a lot of turmoil.  A lot 
of need and want without a lot of get.  I've always stood by my 
decisions as my choices and still do.  My therapist asks what my choices 
were and in truth I can't really say what they were.  She says I had 
none and she may be right.  So even as I stand by my choice, the lack of 
any other viable choices may be the seat of the bicycle I'm currently 
riding.

This seventeen seems like the phrase 'if I knew then what I know now' in 
a lot of ways.  I'm more comfortable with myself as an individual and 
certainly as a woman.  I have experience and knowledge I didn't have 
then and I ain't afraid to use them.  I have a lot more patience and a 
much more open mind.  I know that the world won't come to an end if I 
don't get my way.  The things I don't know are many, though.  The whole 
'call, don't call' thing is weird.  Back in the day, there were no cell 
phones or email, no instant or text messaging.  Not as many options for 
being ignored or wondering if it's the right thing to do or if it will 
be perceived as pushy.  Also, the mind set is so different and since I 
was never in the loop in my own time, I'm certainly not in this one.  I 
don't play games but even as I think that's a good thing, it isn't 
always taken the way I mean it.  Who has time for that?  I don't, that's 
who doesn't.  I've met plenty who do, apparently.

Still, seventeen comes with an awful lot of immaturity.  There's a lot 
of uncertainty and desire to be liked while not being sure that's 
happening.  I've engaged in some unwarranted ill behavior and a need to 
not be outed for it.  I know what's right but let what I want override 
it many times.  The good news about all of that is there is hope for 
learning and putting it to good use so that one day I'll be a productive 
member of society.  Isn't that all we want for our misguided youth?

I think this began around the age of fifteen for me but has quickly 
escalated.  My only saving grace may be the speed with which this is 
occurring so that perhaps I can hope by summer of next year I'll be back 
to my middle aged self.  Life direction clear with a solid sense of 
where I've been so that I'll know where I'm going.  That will be nice 
but for now there's only one problem with that notion which I'm smart 
enough to know is a problem in itself but will also complicate all of 
the other problems.

I'm not yet looking forward to getting off this ride.

Maria