Another Satisfied Customer

When I was in my early 20s, and my mom was in her mid-50s, she went to school at our local community college. She hadn't been in school since graduating from high school at the age of 16, but she did well and enjoyed it. She told me one time, though, that when she sat down in class she would take out a clean piece of paper for taking notes, and she would write across the top of it "KYMSUCUJ."

This meant: Keep Your Mouth Shut Until Called Upon, Joanne. It was supposed to keep her from blurting out inappropriate jokes in class.

From this single anecdote, you will readily infer that I am much like my mother. I look like her, I have her sense of humor, I have her tendency to blurt things out, her inclination to the slightly off-color, and her habit of sharing too much information. She is a collector and teller of family stories, as well. Truly, I am an apple that did not fall far from the tree in this case.

My dad, though? At first glance, we are nothing alike. He doesn't think about the past much; or, if he does, he doesn't talk about it. He doesn't talk about much, in general. He's taciturn and cranky. His default facial expression is a forbidding scowl. Once, on a family vacation, my mom, my brother, and I were waiting outside some touristy welcome center while he went in to pick up a map or something. He came out the door, carrying the map and wearing his characteristic frown. My mom said, "Another satisfied customer!" and we all cracked up. This became a running joke which only he failed to see the humor in.

In the last couple of years, though, I've noticed some of the ways he influenced me. That he was not just something to react against in my childhood and young adult years.

My two oldest kids are left-handed, color-blind boys. In this, they are the image of their grandfather. Word Boy's big square head? Grandpa. The Lego Savant's ability to build anything, and his interest in mechanisms? Grandpa.

Their rigidness and inflexibility? Grandpa, too. Since he always had power over me, I saw him as ridiculously controlling. My dad believes there is one right way to do everything, and that way is his way. (I've probably told you the story from when I was a teenage girl with long, thick hair, and my dad got mad at me for using too much shampoo. He showed me how much shampoo he used--a tiny dot in the palm of his hand--and informed me that this was how much I should also use. This from a man who was already bald when he got married at the age of 24.)

I watch my kids, though, and wonder how much of my dad's tendency to be controlling was about his own emotional comfort. When I watch Word Boy struggle with perfectionism, or fall to pieces when presented with a question that has no single right answer, I see my dad. When the Lego Savant tries to micro-manage the whole family so that his environment can be comfortable for him, I see my dad. When I think about my own inflexibility--which I didn't fully recognize until I became a mom and had less control over my time and environment than I'd ever had before--I see myself in my dad, and my dad in me. I recently read a blog post (which I can't find now but will link to if it turns up) in which the writer said, "I have to write 'be spontaneous' in my calendar, or I'll forget to do it," and that is a pretty good description of me, as well. I used to think my dad was very controlling of his loved ones because we were his loved ones, and that he was trying to take care of us and keep us safe by guiding us very carefully, with attention to every minute detail.

I still think that.

But now I wonder if he wasn't also managing some form of the anxiety that seems to run in our family. Or suffering from a mild version of anxiety's stepsibling, obsessive-compulsive disorder (my first actual psychiatric diagnosis was "Generalized Anxiety Disorder with Obsessive-Compulsive Tendences." Now I wonder if they shouldn't just print that right on the birth certificates of new babies born into my family).

I'm like my dad in other ways, too, if you look behind the superficial. My dad keeps busy building things, fixing things, planning to build things. He spent most evenings and weekends throughout my childhood in his very well-equipped garage, doing god only knows what with power tools. My brother is like this, too--they live next door to each other and have quite the impressive pole barn workspace, with heat and a little fridge and microwave. My brother has build a dune buggy (from scratch!) and a race car (from a regular car) out there.

I used to think my dad and I were not alike: he works with his hands, whereas I am a word person. While he's rebuilding an engine, I'm reading something or writing something or taking a class on something. If my home needs a minor repair, I can live with that quite comfortably for a good long time--indeed, I recently noticed something small that needed fixing ( I can't remember what now) and realized that it had been broken for six months and it had never occurred to me to fix it.

My dad, on the other hand, read exactly one book the whole time I was growing up (though he and my mom have been hooked on audiobooks they listen to together for some years now).

So, just how are we alike in all this?

We both like to be busy. We both are always planning and doing projects. We are both quick to volunteer our expertise--you need a new driveway poured? He's there. You need a press release written for your non-profit organization? I'm happy to do that for you.

My dad, despite his habitual scowl, has a wonderful capacity for maintaining relationships, as well. All the years I was growing up, we only went on three vacations-for-vacation's-sake. But we traveled a lot. We spent many weekends at my grandma and grandpa's house in the woods up north; we drove as often as twice a year to Virginia, where we visited my dad's best friend Kevin and his family. We probably logged thousands of miles around Michigan visiting my dad's counsins and aunts and uncles and old friends from high school or college. We were always off to see somebody.

Even now, when my parents take their annual RV trek to the warmth of the southwest, they give much of their time to meeting up with relatives and friends in Arizona and southern California.

My dad and Kevin have been close friends since they were in the Army together in the 50s, and they have probably seen each other 2-3 times a year almost every year for all that time. My dad's other best friend, John, was his office mate when they were both hired as entry-level engineers at GM in the early 60s. Sometimes when Kevin makes one of his rare visits to Michigan, John and Kevin and my dad sit around the dining room table drinking beer, and John and Kevin have drunken pseudo-arguments about which one is really my dad's best friend. At least, they used to when I was young.

Like my dad, I love old friends--I keep saying that one of the benefits of middle age that nobody tells you about in advance is that you start to have friends you've known for 20, 30, 35 years. Like my dad, I rarely travel just to go see a place. Though I am not close to my extended family, I'm very close to an extended chosen family and I travel multiple times a year to be with these people. When I worry that I might lose a friend, because someone moves away, for instance, I think of my dad and the role model he is for not letting mere geography control his relationships.

(And I have many pleasant mental images of my dad laughing with his friends. He can relax the scowl when he's around them--or around his grandkids.)

I suppose I've been a cliche all my life--hard at work differentiating from my parents as a young adult, finding more common ground as a no-longer-young adult. But I would say that this is also one of the satisfactions of middle age for me.

My dad spent the day at my house today, working on fixing up my breezeway. He's putting in all-new screens, a new floor, and new doors. I worked on my front yard, weeding and moving some things around and getting ready for a big delivery of mulch. Partway through the day, I posted this as a status update on Facebook:

I have just peeked my head into the breezeway to admire my dad's work. We chat a bit.

Me: Well, I'm going to get back to work in the front yard.

Dad: Why don't you get those kids out here to help you?

I laugh.

Dad: Why are you all "ha ha"? They're old enough.

Me: I know. And they will help. They like helping in the yard. I'm laughing because I'm 46 years old and you're still bossing me around.

Dad: Well, that's the way I am.

Me: I know. That's why I laughed instead of getting mad.

We both laugh and then we go about our business.