Pomp and Pandemic Circumstance

My granddaughter, Cassidy has always been a planner. One of my favorite memories of her as a three year old child is being in the car, strapped into her child-seat in the back asking me, “Where are we going first?” Only in her little three-year-old voice it came out more like “Wayuw we going fust?”

We had a series of errands to run, and I answered her question. “Then where?” And I answered her question. “Then where?” And on and on. She has always been happier knowing exactly how her day was going to unfold.

To this day, she does not care for unscheduled surprises disrupting the plan. Conversely, my favorite days unfold in their own way, casting my fate to spontaneity, synchronicity and
the spirit of the moment.

When Cassie was seven, she and her brother came to live with us for a year. Their parents struggled throughout their lives with addiction and mental health issues. During that particular year, I really got to see Cassie the Planner in action. And she got to see me, the “Be-in-the-moment-figure-it-out-as-you-go” grandma inaction. (No, that’s not a typo.)

I’d come home from work at the end of the day, greeted by her wanting to know what we were having for dinner. And then what we were going to do after dinner, and so on. As her grandparent and role model, I wanted to help her get comfortable with the fact that life often does not unfold according to plan. So, I sat her down one day for a talk.

“Cassie,” I began, “you are a planner. And planning is a great skill to have that will serve you very well throughout your life. I, on the other hand, am not someone who likes to plan every part of my day. And I particularly don’t like it when other people plan my days for me.” She explained that she just really liked to know what was going to happen from one day to the next.

Over time, I came to understand that part of her need came from living in a home environment in which plans were made and then obliterated by the impacts of alcoholism. They were regularly disrupted by lack of money, by arguments that erupted, by her parents being too impaired to drive, play, cook, or interact with their kids.

I grew up with alcoholic parents, too. But the imprint on me was different than Cassie’s imprint. She developed that need to have a plan as a way to have some iota of control over the drama and chaos surrounding her. I grew up believing that it doesn’t do any good to have a plan because something always comes along and disrupts it, so what’s the point?

As I look back on all of this, I’m struck by the gift that Cassie is in my life, and how she mirrors my own childhood in many ways. While I’ve tried to help her understand these impacts in her life and make active choices around how she responds, she has given me a lens through which to examine my own childhood. I’ve since come to believe that my life would be much better if I would have put it in her hands that day and just followed whatever plan she made for me.

For each of the next six years, Cassie and her brother spent the better part of each summer with us. Each year, we could see the emotional impacts of the stress in their home life. Each year when they left us, we anguished over the hazards they might encounter. Eventually they returned to live with us, and we gained legal guardianship. We hoped the worst of their struggles were now behind them.

Various discussions over “The Plan” continued between Cassie and me. One day, when things were not going according to her plan, I told Cassie that this was a opportunity to develop her ability to be flexible and adaptable. That could have gone one of two ways. She could have become irritated, rolled her eyes, and punctuated her discomfort with a heavy sigh and a quick exit. But something in that clicked for her, and she embraced those two abilities with grace and determination.

Those words became guideposts as we navigated our different needs around the Plan. “Now, I’m trying to be flexible and adaptable here…,” she’ll say.

Or to praise her efforts, I’ll say, “Look at you being all flexible and adaptable!”  Little did anyone know how pivotal those conversations would end up being, or critical those skills would ultimately be for a young woman who will soon launch into her life in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic.

In the coming week, Cassie will celebrate her 18^th birthday and graduate from high school. In a month, she will leave for college out of state. She’s had a great high school experience, she’s a 4.0 student, her friends and classmates look to her as a leader and a good listener. She has earned every bit of it through hard work, flexibility and adaptability, and good planning. And now all she wants to do is enjoy those upcoming milestones.

The simple question of whether she can hang out with friends is now a daily deliberation of where the hanging out will be, who’s riding in whose car, how much those friends are spending time in close proximity with other friends, are they wearing masks, are they being careful, and you’re going to be outside, right?

It gets exhausting day after day for all of us. Even when all the “right” answers are given, as parents, we’re still left with the feeling of uncertainty. Social time with friends at this age is important. Celebrating rites of passage like graduation parties and ceremonies are important. Hanging with friends before everyone scatters to college, new jobs, and new adventures are important. But are those worth the inherent risk of COVID-19 exposure?

The answers to those questions don’t become any clearer, no matter how many times they are asked. We keep coming back to, “I don’t know.” No one planned for this.

I hope I’m around in 20 or 30 years and can look back with Cassie on this time. While we’re in the midst of this, we cannot appreciate the evolutionary significance of what we’re living through. It’s not easy to articulate or predict the long-term changes in human interaction at home, with friends, with colleagues and clients in the workplace, with the environment. And if we can’t articulate or predict it, we can’t plan for it very well. But from what I have seen in my grandchildren and those of their generation, if anyone can figure it out, they can. And maybe they will benefit from a little historical perspective from us old ones to help them develop their skill sets for the challenges and opportunities ahead.

So, to this graduating class of 2020, I want to say you’ve got this. You will figure this out. Flexibility and adaptability are the hammer and screwdriver in the toolbox of life now. For everyone. For everything. For ever more.