I’m Just Tired

In those few moments of waking, when the brain is still reconnecting with the body, twelve hours folded back on themselves.

I stood there looking into the face. The moist eyes seemingly holding back tears. The face expressing both resignation and anger. Three words that transported me back to a kid in the eighties.

"I'm just tired."

Three words said to mask the brewing anger and frustration of a teenager who dare not say what he was really feeling.

The weight of those three words hit me because in that instant I was that young man. Simultaneously a budding adult full of know-it-all bravado, and a boy needing the guidance of an adult. Both pulling at the inner girders, trying to keep up a facade.

I am not the parent. Maybe that's why I could see the tension behind those eyes. Maybe that's why I got more of a response than a clenched jaw and moist eyes.

I said the only thing that came to mind. Not eloquent. Not helpful, in some eyes.

"You can tell me to fuck off, and we'll work through it."

That response revealed a snicker. But behind that snicker, a realization. An understanding that this young man was seen. I wasn't telling him to get over whatever was hurting him. In those crude words was reassurance that we would work through it.

The realization was seeing myself in him. Understanding why my own parents could not get through to me, back when Hair Bands and Aquanet ruled. Why my own parenting seemed to be a failure when my children could not share with me.

In that moment of connection with that young man, I understood so much about my own youth.

Maybe I'm projecting the hell out of this. Maybe he was just tired.