Hearing Loss, Smoke Monsters, and Waiting Rooms: How to be a Grown-Up

I remember being eight years old and listening to a family friend make fun of my grandparents. Her call-and-response impression of my impatient grandmother and my unflappable grandfather was flawless:

“Pete …”

“What? …”

“Pete …”

“What? …”

“Pete …”

“What? …”

“Pete …”

“What? …”

“Pete …”

“What? …”

“PETE!!!”

“WHAT?”

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO YELL, I’M RIGHT HERE!”

It was funny to me because I had never heard anyone mock my grandmother before (that is, no one had dared mock my grandmother before). It was funny to my parents because, as golden-hearted as my grandfather was, he also had a very, very dry sense of humor.

We had an eerily similar conversation with my father recently, when he walked into a room where music was playing and asked:

“Who is this singing?”

“Straight No Chaser”

“Who…?”

“Straight No Chaser”

“WHO…?”

“STRAIGHT NO CHASER”

“OH. I THOUGHT YOU SAID ‘STRAIGHT, NO GAYS HERE.’”

Ouch, it still makes me cringe. It had to be a terrible, hearing loss-related joke, right? I mean, right??

Either way, I have a sneaky (and terrifying) suspicion these conversations will only get worse. At 30-mumble years old, I am now at a stage where my parents are becoming the grandparents, and my siblings and I are now “The Grown-Ups.” Some days, this strikes me as a bizarre plot twist – when did we get so responsible? – but most days I realize that, of course, this was bound to happen because life is nothing if not a series of paradigm shifts.

I thought being a grown-up person would mean having my act together. I imagined saying things like, “My husband and I have decided to purchase a lilac farm, once we return from our third cruise ‘round the world in our sailboat.” (Naturally, as an adult, my sophistication would be evidenced by a British accent.) Instead there is a lot of sitting in traffic, sorting through junk mail, listening to hold music. And sometimes, as Elizabeth Bishop points out in one of my favorite poems of hers, “In the Waiting Room,” being “one of them” can be surprising, uncomfortable and even horrifying (see the anecdote above … or on second thought, don’t).

To me, being a Grown-Up is like being a character on the TV series Lost. You end up with a crowd of people somewhere you didn’t quite intend to be. A few people in the crowd are your traveling companions, but most of them are total strangers. You’re not sure how you all arrived – everything up to this moment is a blur – but you realize you’re going to be here for the rest of your life, so you should figure out some of the essentials, like who you can trust, and who needs help. And with the violent storms, the sometimes-violent people, and the daily struggle for survival, you’re not entirely certain how long you’ll be able to convince yourself – or anyone else – that you got this.

Having sat in a hospital waiting room myself a few days ago, I agree with Bishop. Realizing that I am now one of The Grown-Ups can feel like “falling off the round, turning world into cold, blue-black space.” It can be disorienting, disempowering, disillusioning. (Both the sailboat and the lilac farm seem like WAY too much work. My only “accent” is from Western New York, and I try very hard to cover it up.)

I’m learning that, like the Lost survivors, Grown-Ups have only a moment to decide how to balance their daily must-do lists with the unexpected. Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about polar bear attacks, or being held hostage by a megalomaniac, or deciding whether to detonate a 20-ton hydrogen bomb (#LostPeopleProblems). But the unexpected can be just as life-threatening. Just as devastating. Just as grave.

Even so, somehow, as with those on the island, Grown-Ups get up every day and do what needs to be done. They trust and help people – even when they’re pretty sure they may need some serious help themselves – until they suddenly realize the hike from the beach to the caves has become a well-beaten path; and that odd shift in the air means rain is coming (or, just as likely, the Smoke Monster is coming); and a pattern of hoofprints and broken twigs will lead to a wild boar that may be prepared for dinner.

You can call it Divine Grace, Adaptation, Blind Luck. But, by some sweet confluence of the cosmic, the human, and the supernatural, you might just make it as The Grown Up after all.

Some days, like the day I spent at the hospital, I think this remark from one of Emily Dickinson’s letters perfectly sums up How to Be a Grown-Up: “This world is just a little place, just the red in the sky, before the sun rises, so let us keep fast hold of hands, that when the birds begin, none of us be missing.”

Other days, I think Dr. Jack Shepherd’s words sum it up much better, if not more succinctly: “Live together, die alone.”

And other days still, I get up to do what needs to be done. I trust and help people, and I tell myself, Hey, I’m one of The Grown-Ups now … And – at least for today – I got this.

XO,
JM