Well-Adjusted Young Man

It didn’t feel real, so you escaped to something that felt real, something familiar. But then it didn’t stick, as you knew it wouldn’t, though your ex wouldn’t refuse your proposal you knew it wouldn’t go back to how it was. You feel regret over running away from things and not getting anything permanent in your life.

How had I gotten to this point?

I was put in mind of a time I'd sat in on one of my mom's university classes. I couldn't have been older than ten, my dad had been busy and my mom hadn't been able to find a babysitter.  So I'd been precocious, proud as hell to be sitting in that English lecture with the teenagers and twenty-somethings and understanding what my mom was saying.  We'd even read the book together, over the prior few weeks, so I knew the material. Oranges are not the Only Fruit.

While I'd been sitting and listening, an older man had come in and sat next to me, in the back row.  In a kind voice, he'd murmured a comment about how my mother was an excellent professor.  Then, a few minutes later, when I got up the courage to raise my hand and answer one of her questions, he'd complimented me, got up and left.  All my pride in myself and my mother aside, what had struck me about the encounter was the man's hair.  A ridiculous comb-over.

After the class was over and my mom had been taking me home, I mentioned the man, and she'd identified him as the head of her department, her boss.  Then I brought up the comb-over and how bad it looked.

"Look at it from his perspective," she'd explained.  "Maybe, a long time ago, he started to lose a little hair, but he could brush it to one side in a way that made it not show so much.  Every year that passed he brushed his hair over a bit more.  It was gradual, something he slowly got used to, seeing it in the mirror every morning and every night.  Lots of small steps."

"Why doesn't someone point it out?"  I'd asked her.

"He doesn't have anyone to point it out for him," she had replied, "And anyone who knows him well enough doesn't want to hurt his feelings, even if it might be better in the long run."

"You could," I'd told her.

So she had, later that week.  Ripped off the band-aid for the old head of the English department.  According to her, he'd gotten a haircut, then thanked her at a later date.  That event and what my mom had done afterward always stuck in my memory.

I swallowed past a lump in my throat.  It always caught me off guard, just how frigging much I missed her, when I thought about her.  I'd give anything for a thirty minute conversation with her, right this moment.  I didn't have the slightest doubt in my mind that she could have made sense of everything, put things into terms so simple that working it out looked easy.

I had to stop, look up, blink back the tears in my eyes, and take a deep breath before I moved on.

Was my situation the same as the old man's?  Had I let myself gradually slip into a bad spot, because of my lack of perspective beyond what was going on inside my own head?