My wife says if I had nothing to angst about I’d make something up.
At the top of my worry list is how my grown children are doing.
One thing I’ve discovered being a middle-aged father: Sometimes it’s hard to let go.
My daughter Katie, 25, is in Seattle working for a non-profit agency and just getting by. My son Alex, 22, is at SUNY New Paltz and looking at adding another full year on to his schooling to get a dual major in Spanish and music.
They’re both relatively a long way away from our Upstate New York village of Skaneateles. Katie is across the country; Alex is a 3 ½-hour drive away.
Every so often I wish they were closer.
It was me who constantly told them as they were growing up that the one regret I have in life is that I didn’t travel more before I got married.
I remember when I was 24. After graduating from Cornell University with a degree human development and family studies, I decided to leave New York and move to Los Angeles. I was accepted into a graduate program at U.S.C. in occupational therapy. I dropped out after only a semester.
My mother had died a year earlier and my father said I should probably just come back to New York.
At that time there was this Billy Joel song, “My Life,” playing on the radio. His words emboldened me:
“I don’t need you to worry for me cause I’m all right
“I don’t want you to tell me it’s time to come home
“I don’t care what you say any more, this is my life
“Go ahead with your own life, leave me alone.”
I ended up moving into a single-wide, rented trailer. It was located in a dingy, gang-ridden area of South East Los Angeles.
I took a day job as a counselor at a sheltered workshop for mentally retarded adults and saved money by cycling to work each day.
My girlfriend (now my wife, Laura) moved out and joined me. We moved into a cheap apartment, complete with rented, vinyl furniture. We didn’t even own our own bed.
Intent on getting into newspapers, I interviewed at every newspaper in the greater Los Angeles area. I got rejected everywhere. Finally, I convinced the sports editor at the now-defunct Southeast News to take me on as a part-time sports correspondent.
I stayed at it for more than a year and eventually was hired as a full-time reporter on the news desk. That was how my journalistic career started more than 30 years ago.
I struggled then, just as my kids are struggling now.
I must have driven my old man nuts with worry. Back then, we didn’t have email, Facebook or Skype to stay in touch. Since I was paying my own phone bills, I didn’t call him that often.
But I got through hard times figuring out how I was going to eat with little or no money in my pocket. I survived having my bike stolen, car breakdowns — and what happens when you really exaggerate your deductable, work-related expenses on your income tax form.
I married, settled into my newspaper career and eventually moved back to Upstate New York. Maybe my kids will return some day. Maybe not.
There’s an expression: “If you love something, set it free.”
Deep down I know it’s a good thing to let my kids stumble, wander about and occasionally fail in what they’re doing. In the meantime, excuse me while I angst.
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