My remembrances of being a budding teenager…

-       I thought I had a pretty good grasp on life.

-       I remember being able to detect hypocrisy…in others more than myself.

-       When I was alone, I was active in my head.

-       Sexual inquisitiveness meshed with hormonal needs.

-       Desire itself was undergoing a civil war…a love for family vs. a draw to stuff

-       Girls were more important to me than I let on.

-       A need to fit in was felt while I downplayed its power to my parents

-       I began to keep more secrets…not all deviant ones, but my own independent storehouse of thoughts

-       Even when I fought my parents, I didn’t want to hurt them

-       There were several things that I didn’t do simply because I loved my parents

-       Other people perceived me to not care about stuff that I really cared about.

-       I didn’t have language to communicate what was rolling around in my head.

-       I didn’t care if I hurt my siblings, but I wouldn’t let anyone else hurt them.

-       My parents were unaware of how deeply I was thinking.

-       I thought my decisions were right even when I was proven to be wrong.

-       I remember doing wrong things but always knowing this wasn’t how I would behave in the future.

-       I didn’t have any girlfriends, but I carried sexual fantasies inside my mind. It doesn’t sound possible, but I was scared of real girls, but loved girls.

-       I wanted to be known for more than my parent’s son.  I wanted my own reputation.

-       I also was proud to be my parent’s son; I just wanted to be able to pick and choose when and where to express it.  They couldn’t determine that, only me.

-       I loved God, but was not demonstrative in my faith.  I had strong convictions, but would often test the boundaries anyhow. I had a conscience even when I was caught doing wrong.

-       I knew what I wanted for my future even though my present choices didn’t reflect that framework of internal values.

-       I valued the outside world’s opinion of me increasingly as the years went on, almost like it was unbiased and thus more trustworthy.  I wanted my parents to be proud of me, but felt like they had to be, whereas others weren’t obligated, so their approval had a unique weight.

-       I remember seeing what others had that I didn’t.  Things they could do that I couldn’t.  It was either constrained by money or restrained by morals.  I didn’t necessarily despise that; I just noticed the contrast in possessions and permissions.

-       I always felt in control even when I was nearing danger zones—physical, spiritual, sexual, etc.  I felt like I was managing my life with clear-mindedness, steady at the wheel.

-       I loved being with my father in the woods even though I would say I wanted to stay inside and watch TV instead.  This sounds paradoxical, but things he made me do are what I really wanted to do more deeply than what I superficially wanted to do. I’m glad in some things he persisted and didn’t leave it up to me.

-       This was a huge hinge…I didn’t like to be told what to do.  Even if it’s what I wanted to do.  If someone told me to do it, something in me didn’t want to.  If I decided to it before they told me to, I was fine.

-       Discipline wasn’t spanking anymore, that stopped years ago.  So I felt more powerful in my relationship with my parents…they were losing control without losing authority. Punishment and consequences felt worth the disobedience sometimes, sadly. (Better to ask forgiveness than permission type of thing).

-       They thought I was further gone than I did.  They didn’t know that I could still pick up the signals of danger and that my heart still wanted goodness and truth.  It was latent.

-       It was harder to talk to my parents about my real thoughts and feelings, doubts and questions.  They would ask, which I appreciated, I just didn’t want to tell them for fear that it would affect what they would let me do.

-       My parents never shared their weakness from what I remember, so it wasn’t encouraged in the DNA of our home.  I remember one time when my dad cried and I felt his heart, it stunned me.  But that was an exception to the rule unfortunately.  He may have cried without my knowing it, but I needed to know that he was affected, that he was human.  I didn’t need a good example anymore, I needed a real example…and those were hard to find.

-       Even when it didn’t seem like I gave a rip, I was always watching the faithfulness of my parent’s lives. How they loved people and talked about people.  How they made decisions. How they never complained.  How they gave up things so that we could have things.  This didn’t escape my attention, though they wouldn’t see this until later when I could express it in words.

-       Their questions of my life seemed annoying, but I would have felt something worse was happening if they stopped asking or caring.  I wouldn’t throw them a bone very often, but the gesture was a homing signal to me.

-       My treatment of my siblings didn’t move toward mutual care until the first year of college.  It was friction and selfishness and squabbling and staying separated in our own rooms to keep us from trivial tensions, but all the while, I would die for them.  I just didn’t value them as much as me at this point.

-       My parents always kept hugging me goodbye and staying affectionate even when I wasn’t as into that kind of stuff.  It was weird, cause I saw that other parents kept their professional distance, and I was glad I had loving parents, I just wanted to control when and where it happened.  Again, desiring it, but on my own terms, in my own timing.

-       I didn’t care about what my parents might have been going through.  I didn’t know to even ask them a question about their life, though they taught me how to do this every day of their lives.  It was planted in me, but the seed didn’t grow until I was gone.  I feel sad for them.  The minute I left our house and went to college, I felt things sprouting that were dormant inside.

-       I treated other adults with more respect than my own parents because I knew my parents would love me no matter what but I was aware other people wouldn’t love me without condition.  I wouldn’t have known to articulate it this way then, but I knew this feeling well.

-       I knew our “house rules”, but every time I went to a friend’s house, I wanted to fill up on all the things that weren’t afforded me at home.  TV shows, dirt bikes, Nintendo 64, junk food, Atari, staying up late, not praying before every meal in public, roaming the neighborhood un-chaperoned.  Freedom felt intoxicating.

-       I still had boundaries with friends, not the same one’s my parents established, but lines in the sand that I established and wouldn’t cross even when pressure was mounting.  But this was me saying no to me, for me.  It felt empowering.

-       I remember trying to swear with friends and talk dirty, but it felt like a foreign language to me even as I got better at it.  It wasn’t my native tongue, so as much as I caved to peer pressure, it always felt put on…this speaks of the heritage and habitat that was en-culturated and cultivated into me from infancy on.

-       Even when my parents didn’t think I cared, I did, I just didn’t want them to remind me of what they felt when I did things.  “I already knew”.  In fact, I remember saying a lot, “I know.” … “I already know that, mom.”

-       I remember when my parents would let me do things that I knew they weren’t comfortable with.  Whether it was holding a girls hand or working at a place with bad influences in the summer, they made a decision to let me get out there in the world and learn for myself.  I didn’t realize how hard this probably was for them, but the alternative was a potential widening gap of relationship due to the ‘perceived irrelevance’ of my parents.

-       When they let go, I felt more of a desire to hold on.  When they held on, I felt hell-bent on letting go.  It was a season where they must have felt like they couldn’t win—damned if you do, damned if you don’t.  But their trust in me, even through I would betray that trust at times—felt like connection with them in some strange way.

-       I isolated myself as I look back.  I ran into the woods.  I didn’t want to be forced to cohabitate with siblings or be in conversations about how my day went or what I thought about life or Jesus or school.  There wasn’t technology, but their still was escape.  And it was a way to leave without going anywhere.

-       When I was home, I was either outside or in my room, a lot. I listened to the radio, secular stations that had rock songs.  It was my version of defying my parent’s archaic laws, without being a partier.  I was a closeted rebel.  A Christian con-artist.  They were stupid non-sinful things I did; I just knew I was doing them anyway, Man vs. Society narrative.  

-       I loved being with my family at the dinner table.  I don’t know what it was about that particular place, but that’s where it felt fun and free, ordered, yet spontaneous.  Stories were uncorked and poured out.  Laughter and fighting and questions and discussions flowed naturally instead of via interrogation. 

-       I can’t reiterate enough how much I carried inside me a constant desire to not hurt my mom and dad, to dishonor them for all their sacrifices and love.  Even as I disobeyed, their faces were pinned to walls of my brain.  I cared more about their disappointment than God’s.  

-       The appeal to ‘breaking God’s heart’ didn’t do much to convict me, even when it was laced with the prospect of judgment or eternal consequence (loss of reward, etc.)  That was just too ethereal to me even though I believed in God.  What made sense and made a difference was my meaningful connection to my family…they were my anchor even as the winds and waves had their way with me on the surface, below, they remained my grounding ‘reason’.

-       I remember my friends increasingly getting more risqué each year, but as I was given more trust and freedom from my parents, I had less and less of a desire to do those things that were all around me.  I think if they would have kept me from being around it, I would have sought it out, but because they choose at some point to let me go, I felt the agency of choice in the matter, and that felt like I wasn’t seen and treated like a stupid kid.

-       When I was talked to or treated like a kid--deserved or undeserved--I went underground; I would blue-screen.  I would say things like, “Yep”, “I don’t know.” “K.” But inside I was walled off.  Something about being talked to like a kid at this “right of passage age” and being lectured to didn’t work anymore, it actually had the opposite effect, like an anti-training.

-       I sensed my parents began to let me struggle, let me choose, let me find out through failure or pleasure what life was like.  They seemed to trust the process knowing it was going to be mixed with experimentation--trial and error.  It seemed like a parenting version of Jesus words: “Those who keep their lives with lose them, but those who lose them will find them.”  The more they clung, the clingier it felt.  The more they released, the more relaxed I felt.

-       It’s weird, but I knew that when I left the house, I would follow God.  I just didn’t want my parents to know that for some reason, like it would somehow show my cards and that I would be treated differently.  I wonder if I was unknowingly testing them to see if they only loved me because I complied or if their affection was truly connected to me, beyond the behavior-me.

-       My parents didn’t look over my shoulder asking me why I was spending my money on this or that.  They weren’t vigilant every day making sure I wasn’t learning bad patterns or unhealthy behaviors that would contaminate the rest of my life.  It’s like they knew they had set the system preferences and that I would default back to true north eventually.  The more they trusted the process, the more I stayed “in line”.

-       I always knew I could be whatever I wanted to be.  As unruly as I was, I knew who I was and what I wanted, and regardless of my temporary choices, I was going to return to my roots…I liked them.  I compared them to all my friends, their families, and what the world was offering, and I knew my setup was superior.  I can’t tell you why I felt that starting when I was in about 5^th grade, but I did.

-       Even though I thought my parents responses weere overreactions in this adolescent season, I never felt like they were coming from places of me ruining their reputation.  That is to say, they never implied that I was making them look bad or ruining their dreams for their life.  They didn’t make it about them, which is pretty crazy since it seems like an easy card to play when you’re exasperated.  It always stayed about me, what was good for me, their heart for me.

-       Consistency meant something to me.  I saw the hypocrisy in the church and in Christianity and other people’s homes.  I started looking for it in my parents.  Despite their dumb rules and ideas that I disagreed with, I didn’t see a two-faced double standard.  They practiced what they preached.  I knew where I would be a little different when I got older, but I respected their devotion.  To God and to us.

-       I will end by saying that I felt like when I hit those teen years, I wanted to decide for myself more, I wanted more room to breathe and run free.  The more I was told something was forbidden, the more it became the irresistible forbidden fruit.  So when I was given more choice in the matter, I made mistakes, but I began to see the consequences of actions rather than just being told that they existed.  Consequences would cause me to go back to the wiring and coding of my upbringing (I didn’t know this at the time), and I would “think” I was deciding something for myself that I came up with not knowing that it was a framework my parents had constructed before I knew to recognize or appreciate it.  It’s like my parents lived the verse: “He who began a good work in you will carry it to completion.”  They knew they had done the lion share of what they could do, and now God had to complete it.  At least this is what it seems like as I look back.

These are just retro-thoughts on the goings on inside my young boy heart.  I tried to get into a place where I could really remove myself from what I now know and as purely as possible remember what it was like or how it felt as a young man finding his way in the world.  I hope this helps.