This Thursday Americans traditionally give thanks for all they have. But some of us are equally grateful for what we don’t have, or what we didn’t get.
When I was 10 years old I wanted to grow up to be 6 feet 6 inches tall. My reasoning at the time seemed sensible enough; being 6’6” would be enough for me to start alongside Lou Hudson, Lenny Wilkens, Bill Bridges, and Zelmo Beaty for the St. Louis Hawks. However, while I wanted to rise to a height sufficient to allow me to star in the National Basketball Association, I did NOT wish to be so tall as to attract undue attention from strangers. I didn’t want to be someone who was constantly pointed at in supermarkets by incredulous children who would loudly shout (to the embarrassment of their parents), “Whoa! Look at that guy!”
The genetic possibility of my growing to a height of 78 inches was slim, as my own father stood a mere 5’7”. And despite eating all my vegetables, doing daily stretching exercises, and eschewing coffee, tea, and cigarettes, I never came close to reaching six and a half feet. I ended up 6’2”, a perfectly acceptable height except on those occasions when I forgot about the iron girder that spanned the ceiling of my mother’s garage. The bar was a mere 66 inches above the ground; those over 5’6” who momentarily forgot to duck when walking through received a painful reminder that being taller than average isn’t always all tinsel and glamour.
That height has no more to do with a person’s value than similar factors like race, gender, weight, or age is now common knowledge. Those feeling shorted (pun intended) due to a lack of personal altitude should adjust their attitude; with the right outlook anyone can celebrate his or her height as the ideal one, no matter what it is.
As a teenager I wanted to be all grown up, but as a high school senior I had neither car, driver’s license, nor need for a razor. The really cool guys had girlfriends, but I never did, which on occasion led me to sadly conclude I was nothing like the suave, macho, totally together guy I privately wished to be.
Thankfully, today no one I work with or live near attaches any value to my height, or to the modest car I drive. (I now shave on a daily basis too, but unfortunately no one cares about that either.)
But some young people still aspire to too much too soon. Not too long ago I was visiting after school with a colleague and one of her former pupils, a young woman who had graduated less than two years earlier. She was accompanied that day by her angelic-looking 6-week-old son, who slept through the entire chat, and an attractive companion I didn’t recognize because she attended another high school. Her friend was 16 years old, and pregnant. I remembered the older of our visitors as a student who had taken great pains to make herself eye-catching. Heads turned when she sashayed down the hall. At 17 years old she could easily have passed for 24, which was probably her aim at the time.
But that afternoon the 19-year-old mother could easily have been mistaken for a tired 40. She conceded that if she could somehow be a high school student again she’d do a few things differently. She confessed that the father of her child, whose whereabouts she had lost track of, was a “loser.” Neither my colleague nor I responded to that observation verbally, even though we both knew where he was headed when the young man in question was attending our school.
The conversation that afternoon left me thankful for several things. In retrospect, had there been a desirable girl in as big a hurry as I was to become an “adult” when we were both 17, the “loser” being talked about in a similar discussion some decades ago could easily have been me.
Thanksgiving Day is traditionally for consciously appreciating all that we have and all that we are. But it’s also a time to gratefully acknowledge what we don’t have, what we aren’t, and to breathe several sighs of relief for all the things we once desperately wanted but for whatever reason(s) were unable to acquire.
I’m grateful to all those females I secretly and ineffectually coveted three and a half decades ago for accurately recognizing me for what I was at the time: an agreeable, moderately amusing, utterly immature late bloomer with a sports fixation.
More importantly, I’m thankful they all had the good sense to leave me that way.
— Andy Young teaches in Kennebunk, and lives in Cumberland.
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