Interlude 3

Author’s Note: This is from the Sophomore Year at the beginning of the Fall semester.

Uncle John

I look back and it’s hard to imagine that it’s been over a year since my nephew, David, came to spend the summer with me. When he arrived, he was a confused and angry young man. You might ask what teenager isn’t.

I don’t know, but my sister-in-law may have been even more pissed than he was. My brother is a lucky man because he found Carol and they had two wonderful children. In many ways, I’m jealous of him and what he has. Then she will go off the deep end and wow ... just wow. It’s a good thing he loves her so much.

My plan to help David was first to work him so hard he couldn’t feel sorry for himself. The reason was threefold. I wanted to get all the poisons—drugs and alcohol—out of his body. In addition, he needed to get in shape: this active kid was quickly becoming sedentary playing video games and drinking, and gaining weight at an alarming rate. I was concerned that if he continued, he would become part of the statistics for obesity in our country. Finally, I needed him to regain his confidence. Building fences doesn’t sound like much, but it gives you a sense of achievement when you can see the fruits of your hard labor.

Before I talk about David, I want to make it clear his parents did nothing wrong with him. They made sure he had good values. He didn’t come from a poor family, but they didn’t have a lot of extras. David was loved and they paid attention to him. His mother made sure he got to church. He also had friends that were all good kids.

What happened to David was he met a girl. It’s probably one of the oldest stories in the book. A young boy has a girl pay attention to him for the first time. He wasn’t emotionally developed enough to know what to do with all the things going on with his body and in his head.

Compounding that was how his friends reacted. The girl who David found as his first girlfriend was the queen of his class. There always seems to be one or two girls who stand out. David’s friends thought he’d reached too high.

That reminds me of a great analogy. If you catch a bucket of crabs, you never have to put a lid on it to keep them in. That’s because if one tries to climb out, the others will grab it and pull it back down.

In the same manner, you may notice that if you want to make a major change in your life, there are always people who try to stop you. Not because they try to be cruel; they may do it out of love. They simply want you to be how they expect. For David, he was an awkward, nerdy teenager who’d never dated, and suddenly he was going out with the best-looking girl in school. Of course his friends would be worried ... right? Crabs in a bucket.

There are certain life-lessons that simply aren’t taught and should be. For David, he needed to learn personal responsibility. I think this is what hurts most people. They simply don’t understand that they’re responsible for their own happiness. It’s no one else’s job to make you happy. With that comes the responsibility part: you’re responsible for your actions.

This was the biggest hurdle we had to get over. David blamed anyone and everyone for what happened to him. His girlfriend expected him to drink and smoke pot. His friends weren’t sympathetic when she dumped him. He had to find new friends that drank and smoked pot. He wanted to throw a party for his new friends.

The girl that almost died ruined his life. His mother didn’t understand him. The pattern was obvious. If everyone would just do what he wanted, everything would be perfect. I miss being a teenager. I’m surprised many of us survive the experience. The sad part is that many people never grow up and get past this stage.

The biggest breakthrough came when David finally understood that he was the conductor of his own life. Understanding that only you are responsible for your success or failure, happiness or sadness, and everything else, empowered him. Of course, the journey there can be painful. I had to get David to grow up, so to speak, in just a few weeks. This process normally takes years for people to figure out. David was an emotional mess. For the most part, he pulled the typical Dawson response, where we go quiet. I heard him cry his eyes out most nights. I’m a patient man; I outwaited him while I showed him that I cared.