consequences

Good Thing #4 on Sunday was J.K. Rowling's first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy. Since Sunday I have finished this book, and I have to update my recommendation.

 

I still say the book was excellent. J.K. Rowling has always had a sixth sense for details, which is largely what made the Harry Potter series so compelling, in characters, plot, and setting. In this latest book, the details did most to build characters and their relationships with each other.

She writes people so well. She writes teenagers to a T, which I think is hard to do without cheapening them as human beings and as characters, and she gets into the inner workings of adult minds and motivations as well. And, I think most brilliantly, she packages up so perfectly the complexity of everyone's emotions and motivations and the way they all tangle together to create situations, in all their awkward, dream-like glory.

All of this truth gets a little heavy and rough at times throughout the book, but right at the end, between page three-hundred-and-whatever and the end of the book, between now and Sunday, she just clobbers the readers with sad. I had heard when I first started reading that the book was depressing, and I didn't really believe it, and I still wouldn't personally call it depressing... But I must mention this disclaimer, that the book is really dramatically sad. And also that I loved it anyway. It made me think, but not too hard.

On Monday of this week I went out for dinner with my parents, and we talked about relationships. There has been a lot of relationship talk lately: how love distorts our decisions, and how our responses elicit certain responses from other people, and other things that would take days to relay to you. I will mention briefly that, on Monday night, the main agenda item was Jason moving in with me.

Now, despite the fact that I have always been fairly independent, and that I definitely am developing my own life now, and that I truly believe that my parents would accept me and love me no matter what... This is a scary conversation to have. It's also one I want to have with them, because they are pretty smart and have a lot of life experiences and, as much as I might not like to admit sometimes, they do know me extraordinarily well.

I won't go into a lot of detail, but the sum of the conversation was something along these lines: "Your actions have consequences, and you have to live with them one way or another, and we don't want anybody to get hurt."

Pretty amazing. Did I mention my parents are really smart and really cool?

Anyway, this isn't really anything new to me, since that has been, more or less, the gist of every "tough" conversation I've had with my parents ever (and a lot of the less tough ones too). Your actions have consequences. This is a fact I am all too familiar with.

Among the other things I've learned in my relatively few years: I can know things, and I can be 110% prepared, and I can have thought out the possible consequences of my every action hundreds of times (paying more attention to the details than J.K. Rowling herself)... And I can still be surprised, caught off guard, thrown for a loop, mentally and emotionally destroyed by an outcome to a situation. The degree of destruction caused by life's little curveballs has tended to decrease over time, because I learn from my mistakes and I learn how resilient I am and that I can recover from most everything that comes my way on a regular basis. (Knock on wood...)

All that being said, I can't go around letting the Fear of the Unknown keep me from doing things... So I go on. Sometimes recklessly, but mostly with a deeply-instilled awareness of what will happen if I...

A conversation with a friend after last week's post reminded me how big the decision-making topic actually is, and how relatively little of it I covered in the post. I think choosing and deciding is a particularly large and poignant topic for those of us who are just out of college, 1 year, 2 years out. And, I'm sure, it is monumental also for our parents, recent empty-nesters who are faced suddenly with a forced opportunity to rediscover themselves.

At this point our first jobs and appointments and living arrangements are running out or perhaps wearing thin, or we are suddenly presented with new jobs or positions or appointments. (Sidenote: look for a guest post soon about the year of service. The ultimate bookended post-grad arrangement.) We may be starting or finishing another round of school. Our relationships are changing. (How many of my friends are married or engaged or pregnant or now posting pictures of their babies all over the social networks -- I am too young for this, I insist!) Or we are moving in, or moving out (in with our significant others, out from our parents' houses).

And I will speak for myself and say that, to me, as I near the 2-year mark at my first "real" position, the possibilities loom with even more intimidating shadows labeled, "The Rest of Your Life." And all my decisions and their consequences bear labels and disclaimers warning me that this next thing, or, in some cases, this now thing, could be forever.

That's huge. It's like how we, as 17-year-olds, chose colleges that in many ways shaped our destinies and our identities. At 23, 24, we are trying to project who we are now onto who we want to be, and who it looks like we are turning out to be, and do they line up? Are we compatible with our dreams?

I do still believe in dreams, even though I see mine now as though through a fishtank, or in a funhouse mirror. I will answer my own question: I am 23. I have no idea. I don't know what I will be dealt in the next few months and years, and I have at best a rough sketch of the cards I will deal myself. I'm just trying to be straight-up with myself and the the people around me, and put out good into the world, and be smart without committing hubris, and believe that I will handle my choices and their consequences with grace and wisdom.

And if I mess up, I'll deal with that too.

* * * * * * *
Like second set of baby steps on Facebook at www.facebook.com/theBabyStepsSaga! New posts show up there first, plus other articles about post-grad life, plus teasers and other important information. Thanks for reading! Tune in on Sunday night for this week's All Good Things list, and next Wednesday for more reflections on being a "new adult."