What has in retrospect been the most difficult summer of my life is finally coming to a close. Today, a wheelchair finally arrives, and on Monday it will be taken out to the school for its inaugural journey.
Life as a caretaker is hard, much more so when the person you are caring for lacks the equipment they need to properly live. I am gladdened to know that this period is finally coming to a close, but it brings to mind all the other times I was responsible for another, and how I handled these events throughout my life.
My first true period of responsibility came as a preteen. I had been expelled from a boarding school and the money my parents had paid for it was forfeited. I was told I would have to pay them back as part of my punishment, so I began working at the family car lot. I turned what should have been responsibility into opportunity, focusing my efforts only on what I found enjoyable to do and overworking sufficiently such that at the end of my "punishment" I was owed what was to me back then a not so insignificant amount. Looking back, I am sure that my father organized this deception to try and instill a work ethic into me, but at the time I genuinely thought I was "getting one up" on him.
Later, I learned a worse lesson. When my father learned that I had caused a teen pregnancy before I could even drive, I was told in no uncertain terms that I had to get married, be a father, and take care of my new family. I did not know it at the time, but my father's childhood experience of becoming the de facto parent of his several siblings at thirteen years old merely because he was the eldest son was marred because none of his extended family were willing to take in the siblings as a unit. This recusal of responsibility by his supposed close family members scarred him; becoming a parent of his siblings at thirteen himself was his experience of growing up: living in a house without an adult, ensuring food was available, making sure the kids went to school, helping raise their infant brother.... For him, the event was his mother dying suddenly and his father being unavailable. For me, it was teen pregnancy. But to my father, the implication was the same: I must not be like his extended family members who refused to take in his brothers and sisters. I must stand up to my responsibility and raise this child. And so I was forced into marrying far too young.
I thought I could handle it. I put on a good face, not letting the girl know that I felt pressured into this, but, behind the scenes, I felt I had no choice. It took months before it became clear that I just could not handle the responsibility, but even then I tried to force it. I did not bond with my biological daughter, but I never entertained the idea of abandoning my responsibilities, mostly because my father instilled in me the idea that I had no choice — that, even if I were failing at every side, the important part was to stay and continue and never abandon. Thankfully, my then child wife had no such compunction, and she correctly came to the conclusion that life would be better for us all if she left.
I was distraught at their leaving, even though it was honestly the best decision that could have been made. I was never going to leave on my own, even though I failed at every moment in that domestic life. I stubbornly thought that, even though I hated life, even though I did nothing to make life better, it was still my responsibility to stay and endure. So I did — until she made the decision for me and left abruptly.
I see this problem with responsibility show up again and again in my life. Whenever I feel as though I need to take care of something, whatever it is, I would focus not on taking care of it well, but instead on ensuring I never abandoned the task. It was as though the primary goal was not to do anything well, but to instead just remain focused on constant effort. In some ways, this was a blessing: unlike many of my peers, I have a tendency to always slowly improve in whatever I do. I never get stuck in a rut; I identify things that can be done better, and I change them, one at a time, such that after years and years pass I am a demonstrably different and undeniably better person than when I began. But this process is slow, and it eschews an important practice that I never truly took to heart: failing early and often is more likely to get you to something truly successful. Instead, I would doggedly pursue whatever task I had set before me, slowly getting better and better at it over time.
Don't get me wrong: this is one of my better qualities. Katherine loves to recount how amazing she found that I would change my routine in small ways to get better and more efficient year after year. But it is also one of my worse qualities: instead of voluntarily stepping away from a difficult task, I will try to improve continuously even when it is clear that anothers' skillset would be better suited to the task. This is a fail state that I have to consciously avoid, even to this day. It just is not automatic for me to abandon a task, no matter how ill-suited I may be for it.
It meant I was a terrible middle manager. I just could not delegate well. I would focus on tasks that I was bad at, improving all the while, but really some of these tasks should have been contracted out. I was better in oversight positions; acting as a board member, I could almost instinctively identify failure points and ways to improve — but when I was an actual employee, I would focus on fixing these problems myself instead of properly sending someone better suited to the task. It took many years for me to realize that my true skillsets are in the identification of opportunities and possible fail states, and not in the day to day operation of regular tasks where no improvements can be found.
All this is to say: this summer has been amazingly difficult for me. Tasks this summer have all been rote, with little room for improvement. I have been navigating finding a new home, identifying sources of funding to afford something nice, caretaking for Katherine, and running the usual chores that help a household go. It doesn't sound like much, but almost everything I've done this summer has been the kind of thing that I am particularly poor at doing. It has been a grueling experience.
So I am gratified to know that it is now, at last, coming to an end. I still will have much to do: finding a new home to purchase is certainly at the top of my upcoming list; but at least I will finally not be spinning my wheels with tasks that I am not well suited for.
I look forward to whatever will come next.
The Javelin Program by Derin Edala
