David Does Deep

"The caterpillar sheds his skin to find a butterfly within." - Donovan, There is a Mountain

I like this lyric. It's kind of nice. It rhymes. And it seems like a good opening for some possibly pointless meanderings...

I grew up with a Dad who made it okay - nay, expected - to repeat the same jokes over and over again whenever the appropriate situation arose (and even when it didn't): 

• "What's snoo? Nothing much, what's snoo with you?"; 
• "You may think it's funny when you sneeze like that, but it's snot."; 
• "Rectum? Nearly killed him!"; 
• And so on. 

If something was funny once, it surely must be funny again and again and again and again.

Dad taught me other things as well; things that he'd probably characterize as wisdom. He would repeat these lessons again and again and again too, presumably making them more sage with each repetition (I'd make a spice joke here if I had the thyme).

One such lesson was that "You don't really become an adult until you are x" where x, until fairly recently, could be calculated by subtracting about 10 years from his age and/or adding at least 10 to mine. (I might be an adult now because he hasn't said this to me for a while, or maybe I will only become an adult at 50, or maybe the target is still moving...not sure.)

But let's assume I'm an adult now, even by Dad's standards. To use the image from Donovan's lyric above, can it be said that adult David is the butterfly and that before becoming the butterfly, throughout his prolonged childhood, he was the caterpillar? Was the process of growing up all about shedding a childhood skin to find the adult within?

Uh, no.

There was always a child-within and there still is, very much alive and well. There was never an adult just waiting to emerge from the cocoon of childhood. Growing up was/is all about constructing a skin around the child-within so that others would see him as an adult:

• The child who wants to stick out a foot as someone runs past;
• The child who can barely suppress a giggle when someone farts out loud at an inappropriate time (which is to presume that there is an appropriate time I guess);
• The child who gets angry when someone cuts in line, or sad when someone says something mean to him.

As I get to know myself better, I am better able to understand and embrace the child-within: I'm feeding my need to be creative by doing things like writing a blog and cooking; I'm getting a lot of pleasure out of running; I'm LOVING playing with a five-year old, and re-learning how to read with her, how to draw with her, and all the songs and books and stories of childhood; And I'm reconnecting with the people who knew me as a child.

The newly enlightened David sees that he had the image flipped before: It is the child-within that is the butterfly, the imagined-adult is the caterpillar, and the skin that must be shed is probably fear (the fear of child-like vulnerability, for example).

Is that what Dad was waiting for me to realize so that he could declare me an adult? Or was Dad just making one of his jokes (again and again and again)? 

"First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is." - Donovan, There is a Mountain

First you're a child, then you think you're not a child, then you realize that you never stopped being a child. And that makes you an adult.

"Be like boy! Be like boy! We like Roy!" - The Simpsons, Season 5 Episode 7, Bart's Inner Child

Deep, man.