Ah, Grasshopper

Another Country - Tift Merritt (mp3)
Tell Me True - Sarah Jarosz (mp3)

Dorm duty.

Every night of the week, in every dorm, an adult is responsible for shepherding the little lambs from dinnertime to bedtime. Most advisors live in the dorm. A few, like me, don't. For nine years, I've spent one night each week walking dormitory halls, sitting at a hallway desk for 4-5 hours, striking up the occasional random conversation with adolescent males.

Friday night was the second-to-last night of dormitory obligation. Tonight will be my last. Fitting that my tenure concluded with an encounter that reminded me how full the teenage years are of awkward, uncertain, personality-altering conflicts and experiences.

One of the boys in my dorm -- let's call him Billy -- is a solid student and fairly unassuming guy. Bookish, but not homely or too introverted. In the last month or so, he has become increasingly dismissive of dorm life rules, and his personality in our interactions has shifted in a negative way. Little things here and there, which all speak to a passive-aggressive attitude towards authority.

My last two nights of duty, his behavior has reflected the typical red flags of drug use. Dilated pupils. Locked doors at random times (their doors are supposed to remain unlocked unless they're gone). Goofy or spacey or plain ol' odd responses to standard conversation. So, late on Friday night, I pulled him into a vacant room and offered my theory that he might be making, what we like to call on our campus, "bad decisions."

I hit the barn but missed the target.

Billy has a girlfriend. His first ever. They've been dating almost five weeks. Which, for Billy, is four weeks and six days longer than any other gal-pal he's ever had. The hope of this relationship, of escaping his bubble of dorm life and homework and XBox, rinse and repeat, inspired him to stop taking two very important drugs. He's all but ceased taking both his anti-depressant prescription as well as the meds he takes for ADD.

"The ADD stuff... it really does help me focus and stay on an even keel and avoid distractions, but it makes me feel like a fucking --"

I tilted my head. "Oh. Sorry."

"Thanks. Go on." I'm no prude, but I don't particularly think we're preparing them for life if they feel comfortable hurling naughty words willy-nilly in the presence of adults.

"Adderall makes me feel like a robot. Does that make sense?" (He asked that a lot over the course of our 45-minute conversation.) "I know I need it for my grades, but it feels like it's killing the rest of me. I get this girlfriend, and I wonder if the grades are even worth it anymore."

"You feel more social without the meds?"

"When I take them... I feel removed. Like I'm watching everyone on TV."

What happens often, when adults dive into an intense conversation with a teenager, is that you get more than you had expected, and in entirely unexpected ways. I confronted him expecting a conversation about his own drug use; I was getting a flashback into my own awkward miserable adolescent soul. Except thank God I never had to deal with all those damn meds.

Billy said the girlfriend was negatively affecting all his other relationships. His parents, with whom he often talked several times a week, felt him growing distant. His friends were annoyed with his goo-goo eyed attitude. His teachers were frustrated with his lost focus on school. I was annoyed with his personality change.

"All because of a girl," he said. "Does that make sense?"

Christ almighty, I wish it didn't. "Unfortunately, yes," I said.

His reply: "Well it doesn't make sense to me."

Billy went on to explain that his step-brother was 30 and barely getting by because he'd spent his adolescent life experimenting with drugs. Watching this older brother screw up and witnessing the havoc it wreaked on his life helped Billy know that drugs weren't a particularly wise option. [The irony: he's expected to take two "acceptable" mood-altering medications daily.] Because that so closely mirrored my own reasons for staying away from "bad decisions" in high school, I instantly believed his sincerity. (Sometimes we determine others' honesty by nothing more than how much their statements reflect our own reality... which is rarely the best way to judge it. But I digress.)

Then he offered up the Big Kicker: his new girlfriend was a serious pothead who frequently dabbled in other drugs. LSD. Cocaine. Significant amounts of alcohol.

She just turned 17.

"I know she's bad for me. I know this can't last."

I didn't say anything.

"So... why can't I give her up?" Billy asked, fighting back tears. He managed, the entire time, to be always on the verge of breaking down without ever actually losing composure. It was quite moving. "It's so stupid. I feel so stupid."

It sounds absurd because adolescence is absurd. The cruelest part of learning is the lessons from which no adults can save you, no textbook can prepare you, no test prep can adjust you, no ADD medication can fix you.

Billy spent most of his adolescent years trying desperately to catch a girlfriend. Finally, at long last, he caught one, and instantly everyone is telling him to throw her back and keep fishing. But how long will he have to go fishing to catch another one? A month? Five years? Never? And who's to say the next one he catches won't be equally fucked up? There's plenty of fish in the sea, sure, but that's hardly comforting if you suck at fishing for them.

Billy waited and waited to have someone whose hand he could hold, someone to kiss, someone to sit across from him at a downtown restaurant or with whom to dance at a school dance. He was patient most of the time. Occasionally he probably resigned himself to having no shot. But then... then he found one! And he's supposed to give her up immediately because she's bad for him? Yeah right.

Ironic that all of his problems surround the gaining of a girlfriend, yet acquiring one makes him feel more isolated than ever. His life, previously routine and robotic and boring, has been electrified by this blessed chance at a coveted relationship, and his Frankenstein-esque cadaver has come alive and finally fits into the social puzzle... yet it's all wrong. And there's no clear path towards a happy ending. All roads lead to (temporary) downfall.

As if being 16 and 17 wasn't miserable and frustrating enough, but to throw in the drugs and the alcohol... I dunno. Maybe there's some reward in numbing your adolescent brain from all of it. Diving into a psychadelic distraction from the angst and loneliness until you can emerge older and more capable of handling it. But I don't buy it. Attempting to dodge the misery by postponing it seems to only give the hydra more heads and make them more venomous.

It feels like small concession that he shared all of this with me. Maybe just getting it all out to an adult helps. Maybe.

But being miserable and unsure and (maybe) in love and lonely and desperate to experience a better, cooler life beyond textbooks and classrooms... not all the talk in the world with an adult is going to change or numb those desires.

As adults on the periphery of their lives, the absolute best we can hope to be is a temporary balm.

Maybe that's enough.