My grandfather Gus lived ’til the ripe age of 98. As you would expect, the man saw a ton in his lifetime. This fact would however become extra poignant every time we saw him at yet another funeral. He’d attended those of his elders, his siblings, extended family, friends, half his children, well — you get the idea. Sad stuff, no doubt. My quick story begins when one of these crushing and grievous events hit home for me.

Grief stricken and inconsolable, I’d heard about all the “I’m sorrys” I could handle, so I looked for a distraction. There sat my grandparents as they’d done so many times before. I decided to go and crumble in front of them, figuring that 90 some years on the planet might bring forth some words of wisdom and healing. My head in their lap, Gus put his hand on my shoulder and said, “aw David, whattaya gonna do?”

I wanted to say, “What! That’s it? Are you kidding? You lived through two World Wars, the Great Depression, Watergate, Ishtar, tragedies all, and the only thing you got is ‘whattaya gonna do?’ Gee thanks grandpa!” I wanted to say that, but I didn’t. I didn’t because my body said something else. My body felt a release. So strange, but for all the heartfelt condolences it was these words that brought a temporary relief to the un-relievable. Once I stopped arguing with the reality that was facing me, I was more “free” to grieve. Easier said than done under these circumstances I assure you, but is there a place of less significance where your attempts to control the uncontrollable are over-consuming you?

Our obligation to the belief that we are in total control, or even can be with the right amount of effort and diligence, is a blueprint for untold suffering. Just ask anyone in their 90′s how their quest for total control panned out. Some situations require fervent action, some don’t. The challenge is knowing the difference. Lao Tzu offered, “To hold, you must first open your hand. Let go.” Gus offered, “Whattya gonna do?” Gee…thanks grandpa. No really, thank you.

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So I had this dream the other night about the fateful and inevitable day that my little one is going to be embarrassed to be seen with me. Oh it’s a long way off yet, but armed with some vivid descriptions of this moment from a smattering of well-seasoned parents, my sleepy subconscious manifested a heartbreaking rendition of this bittersweet milestone. Should I, when the time comes, be content with simply writing this off as obnoxious and ungrateful adolescent angst? Not so fast…

I got to wondering why, for all the metaphoric child/parent internal conflict references in the psychology vernacular (wounded child, the good enough mother, etc.), there’s no clear homage paid to this dynamic. Perhaps there ought to be because don’t you remember a million times when you were embarrassed to be seen with yourself? Now it doesn’t just happen one day, but over the course of many. Small, insidious and gathering steam from your very first cannonball into the pool of socialization. To keep your friends and peers from, among other things, dumping a vat of pig’s blood on you at the prom, you concoct a little story here, a little phony façade there and before you know it, you’re cruising down recognition road completely obligated to wondering, “how does this look to everyone?”

How much of this parochial posturing still exists in your life? I’m sure that these days your social status can survive having mom or dad in tow, but have you reconciled the parts of yourself that you continually banish to never-gonna-know-this-about-me land? Some secrets are best kept as secrets I know, but I’m talking about the born writer who doesn’t write or the innately skilled plumber who doesn’t plumb because the familial or social ridicule might be too much to bear. If we imagine for a second that our burning passions were an ideal parent figure, then our eye-rolling and disregard of their wisdom, just so we can “fit in” socially, can be incredibly obnoxious and ungrateful. Plain and simple: we suffer when we are out of alignment with our purpose. So resist the urge to drop the best parts of yourself at the corner, pull the car up right in front of those who like you to be the way they like you to be and start unabashedly living YOUR own truth.

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