Differentiation

 "You are the most mediocre overachiever I've ever met."

I'm 15 or 16 or 17, sitting in a trailer run by CORA services. It's hot; my polyester uniform is sticking to me but the physical is the least of my discomfort.  The counselor and I were trying to get to the bottom of Why I Am the Way I Am.

I wasn't in the headspace to find out.  At this particular moment, she's talking to me about all the extra curricular activities I was involved in at school.  When I think back to the WHY then, it's pretty stupid; my whole goal was to show up in the yearbook as many times as possible.  Why?  I was always conscious of my status as a Scholarship Kid, just lucky to be there. I didn't want to be lucky; I wanted to deserve it.

As my husband likes to say, it's better to be lucky than good. 

My younger self had never heard such a thing. It's probably better I didn't.

But the other piece was a matter of trying to figure out WHO I was.  The wider the net I cast, the better my chances of finding my people.  So I tried all the things.  

I didn't realize that I was building a prototype of the programming that I would later subject both of my boys to.  I called that "Attending the Church of Throw Everything Against the Wall and See What Sticks" (alternately titled "Real World Immersion Therapy") Trying stuff out, meeting new people, trying them out, lather, rinse, repeat....

So now that we are coming to the end of education and running headlong toward the "21 Cliff", it's time to pick up the rhythm, as if I hadn't done so already.  Elder, as crazy as he drives me because he's a crap roommate, is doing the thing; he's got his jobs, he starts the new gig next month (and will begin to lobby for FTE), and he's got his bingo.  He has his One Good Friend.  All he needs is his driver's license.

Younger has some basic adulting paperwork to do that I need to help him get started with.  He actually slipped through some cracks (and I stop to take a text from him to remind him that he needs to get paid this week.)

In between the work stuff, the endless paperwork, the ongoing medical stuff, I have been deliberately carving out time and space for me to get back to exploring some stuff I've been interested in and haven't had time to think about.  A huge chunk of that is happenstance; political activism, rowing, darts, aquatic classes--people intersecting with activities.

Elder is just starting to work all this out. I'm hoping by doing the thing, younger will start taking action on his own.

This kid.  He of the spiky cognitive profile who may or may not have been oxygen-deprived at birth (I'll never know for sure, all we ever knew is that the cord was flattened and that he was whisked away to the NICU--and don't think for a minute that THAT hasn't been at the back of my mind the last 18 years...). He's as dogged and persistent as he is other-worldly. I never know what to expect from him and therefore he forever surprises me. 

Our education doesn't stop here. We just need a bigger classroom...