Every age is an age of change, but none more so than the teen age, when the baby you held in your arms just a moment ago crosses that once-distant border between childhood and adulthood. And as you wonder where the years went, you begin to realise that you’re growing up and changing too.
By Janine Dunlop
Listen, 16: it’s disconcerting, all this growing up you’re doing. I know it’s what happens, but I feel like it’s taken me by surprise. You’ve been taller than me for almost a year now, and as I look up at you, I can still see the baby I used to be able to hold in one arm.
I remember scrutinising you then, wondering what kind of man you’d become, and now, here we are, almost there. Now we hug, and I find myself wishing I could hold on just a little longer. But that would annoy you, so I resist.
I’m having difficulty remembering what your voice sounded like before it dropped several octaves. Your laugh reminds me of your father and your uncles. You’re taller than your dad now, and I wonder whether you’ve done your growing by now, or if there’s more to come.
It seems those seemingly endless appeals for you to say “please” and “thank you” and take your dinner plate to the sink have paid off. I watch you interact with adults now and I adore how polite and articulate you are. I’m enjoying your sharp sense of humour and I love that you remember to ask every day how my day was.
I can no longer gaze at you the way I did when you were a baby. You’d consider that invasive. I still long to just look at you, though, to get used to all these changes, so I sneak peeks at you now and then. I take in your jawline, your broad shoulders and your impossibly long legs.
The taller you get, the more your life is a foreign land to me. You spend hours in your bedroom, listening to music, chatting on your phone, playing games online. I’ve not set eyes on most of your friends. Ok, I exaggerate: I’ve seen some of them from a distance, as you say goodbye to them when I fetch you from school, or the mall, or wherever you’ve been with them.
When I do get to meet them, I find myself scrutinising them, trying to take the measure of them, trying to figure out who they are and what they’re like. I should invite them over for tea or take them out to have a burger. Question them on what their passions are, what they find interesting. But that would be inappropriate, I guess.
I waver these days between playing the role of your taxi driver – driving you to the places you want to go and fetching you from them – and wondering where you are. You spent the day out recently, and I couldn’t get hold of you for a while. I could think of little else until I heard your voice again. I know this is normal – your gradual separation from me – but it’s all new to me and sometimes, it’s frankly terrifying.
I don’t recognise myself when I fret like this – I sound like another version of myself. Believe it or not, I can remember being 16. Not giving my parents a thought as I climbed on trains to get to my favourite nightclubs and staying out all night. Having a string of boyfriends and experimenting with smoking and drinking. You’re doing none of that, and yet, here I am, fussing over where you are and what you’re doing.
I heard it in your voice the other day, when I phoned and asked whether you had offered your friend some lunch – you were slightly bemused, slightly impatient. Why was I asking? Did I not trust that you could think for yourself?
I suppose, just like you, I am another version of myself – an older one, watching a boy-man grow up in front of me. Remember to be patient with me. I’m growing up alongside you, learning just as much as you are about how to navigate this strange, new environment we’re in.
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