LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
My Queer Life: Growing Pains |
by Michael Thomas Ford |
I am a grown up. I know this because this morning for breakfast I ate half a bag of Reeses miniature peanut butter cups. If I were a child, someone would have probably stopped me. But this was clearly an act of rebellion. I dont always feel like a grown up. In fact, most of the time I sit around waiting for someone to tell me what to do next, as if the bell ending recess rang but I cant remember where my classroom is. I keep hoping a hall monitor will happen along and point me in the right direction. Some people take to the whole grown up thing with ease. They get jobs and plan for their futures. They have cocktails with friends, take vacations, and follow the financial news. These people frighten me. Sometimes I sit on the subway and look at them with their briefcases and stylish clothes, wondering how they got that way. Clearly we all started out on the same road. But at some point they took the exit leading to adulthood while I, apparently, was too busy trying to find a really good station on the radio and missed my turn. Its not that I dont do the requisite adult things. I pay my bills every month. I have a credit card. I have a car. But sometimes I still find myself sitting in front of the television set thinking, "You really should turn that off and go outside to play." And on more than one occasion I have had to remind myself that no one is forcing me to get up at six every morning. But I do it anyway, urged on by some kind of groundless fear that if I continue to sleep someone is sure to give me hell for it. When my parents were the age I am now, they had a house and three children. I have the dog, but its hardly the same thing. For one, his toys cost less, and he doesnt demand being taken to a Spice Girls concert because all his friends are going. I wonder if my father used to stand in front of the mirror in the morning and wonder when everyone would figure out that underneath the suit and tie he wore to work he was really still 13 years old. Because thats what I do. Not that I own a suit or tie or have a real job. I sit at home in my boxer shorts and write. But I still worry that one day there will be a knock on the door and some official-looking person will announce in a loud voice that the jig is up and I have to go back with the other kids. When I was 12, I used to look at my sisters college friends and think they were very grown-up. Then, when I was in college, I looked at people who had graduated and started their lives and thought that they were very grown-up. A few years later, toiling in a real job, I started getting suspicious. The height of the adulthood bar kept rising, and it seemed as if I would never clear it. Finally, I gave up. I admitted to myself that I am never going to be one of those truly grown-up people who knows what hes doing. And thats fine. Thats why the world has people like Dan Rather and Oprah. They figure it all out and break it to the rest of us in terms we can understand. Thanks to them, I really dont need to be able to talk about health plans and politics with any sense of assuredness. I can just sit around playing with blocks until Oprah and Dan fill me in. A couple of months back I spoke to a group of third graders at a local elementary school about what its like being a writer. During the question- and-answer period, I looked around at all the shiny little faces staring at me. Choosing one, I asked an eager little girl what she wanted to know. "How old are you?" she asked. "Im 30," I answered, having just endured that birthday. All around me, eyes went wide. The children stared as if I were a newly- discovered relic pulled from the desert sands of Arizona or something. "Thats so old," said one boy. "Youre older than my mom," added another, disbelieving. Things went on in this way for some time. The children wanted to know how someone as clearly aged as I was could write books, let alone walk to their school without the aid of a cane. When I left that day, the teacher accompanied me to the doors of the school. "You should never tell them how old you are," she said. "Its like throwing raw meat to coyotes. I just tell them I knew God when he was a boy. That shuts them up. Except for the ones who want to know whether or not he was a good kickball player." But I know how those kids feel. They look at me and wonder what their lives will be like a billion years later when they too turn 30. Im sure they have all kinds of plans about being models and football stars, of having nice clothes and nice cars and big houses. Next time Ill tell them the truth. "You still wont know what you want to be when you grow up," Ill say. "Youll wonder why everyone else has great jobs and wonderful relationships and dogs who like to sleep on the floor, because probably you havent won that Oscar yet and your significant other really isnt that good in bed and your dog likes to throw up on your shoes. You might luck out and make a lot of money, but chances are youll be eating spaghetti and shopping at Wal-Mart while you try to pay off student loans and those credit card bills you rang up when you were 23 and thought it would all take care of itself." Probably they will just stare at me for a few moments, wondering if Ive succumbed to some hideous form of mental illness brought on by my advanced age. And then Ill feel bad for ruining their lives. "Okay," Ill tell them gently. "Its not all that bad. The good news is, you can eat peanut butter cups for breakfast." That should give anyone hope. Michael Thomas Ford is the author of the books Alec Baldwin Doesnt Love Me and the forthcoming Thats Mr. Faggot to You. He welcomes e-mail at shopiltee@aol.com. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 9, No. 1, February 5, 1999 |