I am on vacation in the Dominican Republic this week, preparing to return home just as this hits your inbox. Still, I felt compelled to write something. So here I am sitting poolside on my final full day at the resort, pen in hand, and little idea of what I will write. This one is a bit more stream-of-consciousness than my typical offerings.
My academic year ended one month ago. Yet it feels like my summer has just begun. In the past few weeks, my son graduated from high school, I went to a conference (where I delivered a keynote), and I’ve had a harder time disconnecting from campus email due to institutional crisis (I finally deleted the account from my personal devices last week). Summer began with a very full schedule.
Perhaps the biggest hurdle of the past few weeks was getting my son through his Eagle Scout requirements before he turned 18. He had his Board of Review where he achieved the coveted status just 6 days shy of his birthday. In many ways, this feels like a bigger accomplishment than graduating from high school, maybe because it has taken almost as long! He and a bunch of his classmates joined Cub Scouts at the same time in second grade, the earliest age of eligibility. A few weeks ago, I wrote about giving my son the gift of stability. His Cub Scout and Boy Scout troops have been a major part of that.
There are not great statistics on this, but apparently only four to six percent of Scouts make it to Eagle rank, the highest level. That number is even lower for kids who started as early as my son and his friends, closer to two percent. But of the group who joined together in the elementary school cafeteria 11 years ago and who remained in Scouts through high school, every one made Eagle rank. That takes incredible support from troop leaders and parents. So many thanks to Ramus, Margaret, Todd, Abby, Diane, Kim, Mark, Jim, and countless others who volunteered their time over the years and pushed these kids to make it through the final requirements.
My kid making Eagle is another sign of intergenerational healing. Growing up, I always wanted to be a Girl Scout. I’d take the recruitment brochures home from school and drop hints to my mom. It wasn’t until my son became a Cub Scout that I realized why I’d never been able to join. The money and time investment are huge. At the younger ages, in particular, it is a family affair.
I’ve changed so much through my son’s Scout adventures. It turned me into a camper (okay, a glamper) and helped me to reckon with my parenting anxiety. First was the transition to Boy Scouts when parents no longer attended meetings or camping trips unless they were trained and vetted leaders. Then came the sleep-away camps. Each time I had to learn to let go and trust other people with my precious son. But the big hurdle came when he was 14 years old and decided to do Philmont, one of Scouts “High Adventure” outings where the kids backpack across the desert for 10 days. That was 10 days when my son was out of cell phone range, sleeping on the ground in the New Mexico backcountry where bears and cougars lived. It’s a good thing that he was out of range and that I didn’t learn about his near-miss with a rattlesnake until he was safely back at home.
The next year, I had to work through my anxiety again when he opted to do his second High Adventure experience, SeaBase. This time, the troop crewed a sailboat off the coast of Florida. By “crewed,” I mean they lived on the boat in open water (no land in sight) for a few days with the ship’s captain being the only person with sailing experience. There has to be a special place in heaven for the parents who went on those trips, right?
With every adventure, I learned to let go a little more. With his Eagle Scout project, I had to resist my tendency to organize the project for him, especially as the cutoff got closer. But now Scouts is over for us. The life lessons, however, are not.
This week in Punta Cana, we went on a half-day water adventure that included snorkeling, an up-close encounter with wildlife, and a sea walk (going down a ladder with a dive helmet and walking along the ocean floor about 12 feet beneath the surface). Of course, it was the newly minted Eagle Scout that chose that excursion over the one where we’d just chill on a boat for a few hours.
I decided to brave the sea walk, despite the palpable anxiety that I felt mounting up as my turn approached. I made it down the ladder, submersed in the ocean up to my shoulders, and then paused for the guide to put the helmet on, my heart pounding. I can do this, I reassured myself as the weight pressed onto my shoulders. My training as a therapist and my meditation experienced kicked in and I started taking deep breaths to soothe my nervous system. Oh crap, I thought, I’m breathing out through my mouth. That was precisely what the guides had warned us not to do because it would make the helmet fog up. I was already worried about it not pressurizing properly. My anxiety was starting to turn to panic when I realized that my deeply ingrained coping strategy was likely to backfire.
Just then, the diver at my side motioned for me to continue down the ladder. There was a time that I would have done exactly that. My desire to please and not inconvenience others would have overridden my own danger signals. But decades of self-care and mindfulness practice has taught me to pay attention to what’s happening within. I shook my head no. The diver motioned for the guide to remove the helmet and I climbed back up the ladder.
That wasn’t the end of my adventure though. At our next stop, I got kissed by a seal and swam with nurse sharks and stingrays. Granted, I lasted all of five minutes in that water above three nurse sharks and a stingray with a wingspan as long as my body. But every minute was a victory considering the fact that I used to be afraid of swimming pools because I imagined that there were sharks in the water. [Don’t judge. It’s what happens when you have a fear of water, an overactive imagination, and two adolescent uncles who take you to see Jaws 2 when you are six].
I am proud of myself for stretching myself and proud too of honoring my limits. Both are signs of growth.
Did anything in this post resonate with you? Leave a comment and let me know.
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