mindpollution.org

Jessica and I returned to New York’s Capital Region last month for her family’s annual reunion. It’s a well-attended event, with something around 50-60 people showing up each year and crowds of cousins, nieces, nephews, in-laws, aunts, uncles and grandparents. My family isn’t nearly as large, and our reunions tend to be the sort of events with more easily manageable numbers - the sort you can count on two hands, in fact. This is just one of the differences between Jessica and I, our families and our frames of reference that pop up as our lives blend together, and I’m endlessly fascinated with what I can learn from these differences.

While we were back in our hometown, I stayed at my family’s home in Guilderland, where I grew up and lived all of of my pre-college life (and some of my post-college life, too). One morning, I found myself using a shower on the second floor of the house that, by my recollection, had always seemed to be broken every time I visited during the last few years. In fact, I don’t think I’ve used that shower since I was in high school. I mention all of this because in mid-shower I was suddenly struck by a wave of nostalgia, remembering my old daily routine that started by dragging myself into this very same shower every day throughout middle school and high school. I found myself acutely aware of the way I had worried about the upcoming day and how it might unfold. Did I forget to complete an assignment that was due? How likely am I to see the girl I have a crush on? Do I have practice tonight? What should I do to let the girl I have a crush on know about my feelings - but not embarrass myself in case she doesn’t share those feelings? What should I wear today? Is that a pimple? Can I avoid the girl I have a crush on until the pimple goes away?

What struck me the most about this unexpected burst of nostalgia was the fact that this sort of thing doesn’t usually happen when I visit my family’s home. So much about the place has changed since I went away to school, and triggers for this sort of thing aren’t readily available. The house is filled with new furniture, rooms have been rearranged and repainted, and even the walls of my old bedroom have been changed around and reconfigured. I don’t even use the same doors to enter and leave rooms that I once used.

In contrast, the bedroom Jessica used throughout her pre-college life is exactly as she left it. All of the furniture is in the same place, the pictures are in the same spots on the walls, and her set of drawers and vanity are still populated with precisely the same arrangement of jewelry and knick-knacks that they played host to years ago.

When I first saw her room, this situation struck me as very, very bizarre. Was it a warning sign? Was the immaculately preserved room a sign of her parents’ refusal to let her grow up and become an adult? Was she refusing to grow up? It felt like the room was some sort of memorial to Jessica - but not the Jessica I knew. Instead, it was a memorial to the pre-college, pre-career, pre-adult, pre-”leaving the nest” Jessica. I wasn’t sure how to process this revelation.

After the first few times I was exposed to her room in the family home, the wheels kept turning long after we returned to our apartment. What did Jessica’s approval of this “Memorial Room” mean? Should I be concerned about some sort of inability to move forward with life that hadn’t surfaced in our relationship thus far? What did the perfectly preserved room say about our future lives together and the potential for us to have a family of our own?

Eventually, I came to understand this contrast between Jessica’s carefully preserved bedroom and my own lack of a bedroom for what it really said about the different ways parents can tell their children certain things - and how both statements can be positive, despite the polar-opposite language. For me, my family’s decision to get rid of my old room was a vote of confidence in my future. It was their way of telling me that they knew I’d move on to bigger and better things and be fine on my own. They were telling me that they didn’t think I needed a safety net. For Jessica, however, the carefully preserved room feels like her family’s way of telling her that, in the massive gathering of cousins and uncles and grandparents and nieces and in-laws that her family hosts each year, she will never get lost in the mix. She’ll always have a place that is uniquely hers within a crowded family tree.

I used to think that parents who preserved a child’s room long after they left the nest were doing so for the same reasons widows preserve their deceased partner’s closet or arrangement of possessions - a form of passive denial. What I’ve learned over the last few years, though, is that more often than not, parents aren’t doing this because they actually expect or want their child to come home, but because they want to let them know they can.

In the end, the most important realization to come out of all this is that every family has its own language, and no two families have the same way of sharing the messages that make them a family.