Of Tennis Shoes and Adulthood

Yesterday I had a bit of a meltdown. There were numerous reasons, most of which have been building up this entire semester. The election, Effie, a couple stalkers (Alyce, don't laugh!), and facing decisions about the future have kind of unnerved me. Don't get me wrong, I'm actually grateful for these things--they've forced me to grow and change as an individual, and have taught me to look to my Bible for answers instead of to myself (yeah, there's a surefire way to eat the world's dirt). I've read more of my Bible this semester than I have for the last, oh, two years? Which is sad, really, but that's not the point. The point is that yesterday gradually degenerated until I was finally just crying for mostly irrational reasons. 

One of the things that set me off was fear of the future. I know the basics of what I want to be when I grow up, but I have no friggin' clue of how to get there. I trust that God will provide, but I'm terrified of the ways in which He might provide. He may provide for me by calling me away from everything that feels safe and comfortable to me. That kind of plan a nervous Katie makes.

Anyway, I was talking to my mom (seek wise counsel! She's amazing.) and she had some really good points to make. But as we were talking, an old memory came back to me, something I haven't thought about in a long time, even though it's still vivid in my mind. 

In my memory, I'm standing on the long, narrow back porch of my grandparents' house at the lake. After my parents' divorce, we went out to the lake almost every weekend, just trying to escape the stress and the reality of our new lives. It was our sanctuary. 

I think I was maybe twelve or thirteen at the time, and I was in a marching band where I played the clarinet. I remember that our band directors had informed us all that we would need to have some special shoes to march in so that we would all look uniform, and that these shoes would cost fifteen dollars each. Not such a big sum, right? It was pretty big to a thirteen year old who has having to watch her mother work three jobs and juggle the budget endlessly just to keep us all afloat. 

I couldn't bear to ask Mom to pay for the shoes for me, not when she was already so worried. Fifteen dollars would have bought us groceries, or gas for the car, etc etc. So I took the money out of what little I had saved, and bought the shoes for myself. I didn't want to tell Mom about it, but the resentment of having to buy my own shoes when nobody else in the band had to was eating at me, and I finally talked to my grandfather, PawPaw, about it. 

PawPaw is a man in a million. He never said very much, but what he did say was always to the point and relevant. He hadn't had much education, but the man was absolutely brilliant. I've since learned that he studied Russian and advanced math during the one year he was in college. He was just a good, country man who took care of his responsibilities no matter what the costs and would happily kick anybody who messed with his family to the moon. Needless to say, he was not that thrilled with my father at the time. PawPaw had since been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and is living (if you can call it that) at a nursing home.

After I'd told PawPaw all about the ignominy of having to buy my own shoes and how nobody else had to buy their own shoes, I summed up by saying something to the affect of, "It's not fair that nobody else has to work as hard as we do. They don't even appreciate what they have, and here we are just struggling to make it. I wish things could be easier. I wish I could be like everybody else and not have to worry about money. I'm only thirteen!"

PawPaw was silent for a moment after he let me vent my spleen. Then he looked at me and said, "Katie, I'm sorry that things are the way they are. I wish you didn't have to do things like this, either. But honey, someday when you're grown up, you're gonna know how to take care of yourself. All those other kids aren't. You'll know how to save money and how to appreciate what you have while the other kids just spend a lot of money and get into debt. You're just skipping some steps--you're growing up. It's hard, but it's necessary."

I think the same advice applies now. Growing up is hard, but then, nobody gets out of life alive anyway. To a certain degree, you just have to suck it up and punch through as best you can. Sure, I'm terrified of having to make the decisions of where to go to graduate school and what to do with my life. But I do know how to take care of myself, and I do appreciate what I have. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and buy the tennis shoes, and sometimes you just have to make the decision, even if it's an uncomfortable one. Whining about the unfairness of life just gets you rolled eyes and bitterness.

I really, really miss my PawPaw. I wonder what he'd think of me now?