Under the topic of Lessons I Just Keep Learning, sometimes a story is sad because it is not over yet.
On Monday, we had this big plan to grill. Well, maybe it wasn’t a big plan for anybody else. I had some chicken and I found this marinade mix (on clearance, with a coupon, yeahhhhh) and we were going to grill and play with this big silly Frisbee afterwards at the park. But then Chris told me he’d invited Justin over and there wasn’t quite enough chicken and we ALWAYS have chicken when Justin comes over. In fact, he hasn’t been over for dinner in a while, probably because he is tired of chicken.
So Chris and I had a quick powwow and I ran over to Winco for some ground beef and other BBQ supplies. I took too long at the store and Chris was busy working on a song for a while after I got home, so when we FINALLY got the grill going it was at least 7. Justin showed up after we ate and it was all discombobulated, but the food was tasty and we had this crazy flustered moment of grabbing the dogs, the leashes, some water, poop bags, and way more summer evening yard game equipment than we could ever use in the amount of daylight we had left.
Chris was totally unsatisfied with the distance on the Wiffle ball, so he’s been wanting to play baseball. He is the only one who ever played. Justin is a snow and skateboarder, the most I ever played was pickup softball games, and we failed Ant completely by not forcing him into Little League. I played the lonely outfielder while Justin and Chris traded off hitting and pitching. Ant was pitching for a while, but wasn’t very consistent, so Chris did what dads have been doing to sons for eons and gave him a hard time about it. Ant took as much as he could before handing the ball off to Justin. He went to play shortstop on the wrong side and missed every ball except for the one that hit him in the foot. He fell over, acted as if mortally wounded, pronounced baseball as stupid and went to go skate. I hit for a little while until it got so dark that we had to play by ear, then we gathered up our stuff and headed home.
Ant didn't show up until 9, like he was some kind of badass who does what he wants. Chris asked him why he left, Ant said the ball hurt his foot, and Chris pointed out that he wasn’t too injured to go skate for an hour. This was a brief volley and then Ant pouted off to his room. I went in briefly and Ant whined that he should NOT be FORCED to play a sport he doesn’t LIKE. I sighed heavily and agreed that he was right—that it would be wrong to take him every week to play on a team—but this was just a family thing, no big deal. I acknowledged that Chris was being kind of turdy, but asked him not to wander off from stupid family outings.
I thought about this situation late into the night. At first, I thought no, he should not be allowed to escape whenever he feels like it. Later, I thought well… maybe he has every right to react like that. He’s 13- isn’t he supposed to be storming off? I thought maybe it’s also good for him to have an honest reaction to Chris’s shit talking. Chris believes it is healthy to learn to take people’s crap, but maybe some lessons are best left to other people? Or is it really best to hear it at home? This kept me up.
The next morning, I woke Chris up and told him he was a turd and he’s going to make his child hate baseball. He got mad that I was waking him up to talk about that, but promised to talk to Ant about it later. Ant was still a little pouty and I kept my mouth mostly shut. This is hard for me, you realize. I just asked that he try to have fun whether or not he’s good at something.
When I got home, Ant told me that he realized that he just has to be in the right mood to play baseball. I was already planning to revisit the park, but with the soft Frisbee—something that would be like playing catch without overtly playing catch. Ant thwarted my plans, however, and suggested we bring only the gloves and baseball. :D
Chris was still pulling some crap like throwing the ball harder than necessary and being a little mean, but he hasn’t really been himself lately anyway. Another old friend of his just died in a motorcycle accident and he’s been kind of short with everybody. I was really proud of Ant though, for suggesting that we play catch. It was nice outside and the dogs were happy. I had to give Chris a couple looks and one small powwow, but everybody kept it together and we had a nice time. After we were done, Chris sat down in the grass next to Ant and they had a little bonding moment. Chris taught us both a little bit about baseball and after a small father/son wrestling match, we went inside.
It’s taken me hours to write this between calls and I’m sure it doesn’t read as nicely as it could, but I’m going to just get it posted before it’s time to go home.
This situation really bothered me and I realized that I have this problem letting things go unless they are perfect. That’s what makes me a halfway decent writer, I think, and a lousy conversationalist. I wanted to tell Ant not to avoid certain things just because he’s not good at them- yet. Be able to have fun even when it’s not perfect. Now I see that I need to apply that to my own damn life. And my writing. I’m leaving this as is. So there!
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