Volume 5, Issue 20: The Weight

"There's something about the light at the end of the tunnel can be very frightening."

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I love going to weddings. I never understand why people complain about having to go to weddings. You get to dress up nice. Everybody’s in a good mood. You visit a place you don’t ordinarily get to go. You see old friends, or maybe make some new ones. There’s free booze. I’ve reached the age where I don’t go to many weddings anymore—I’ve gone from my “high school friend marriage” period to “college friend marriage” to “grownup friends marriage” to “everybody’s second marriage,” and I’m now in a holding pattern until the “all my friends’ kids marriage” wave hits—and I’m a little bummed about it. Know that if you invite me to your wedding, I will always go.

For me, the best part of any wedding, as a guest, is that brief interaction I get to have with the two people getting married. There are basically three or four different times as a grown-up when you get to be the center of everyone’s attention, where everyone is there solely to see and celebrate you: High school graduation, college graduation, retirement party, funeral (which you don’t even get to be there to enjoy). But the biggest of them all is a wedding. It is as close as we, as normal people, ever get to being a celebrity. At that specific event, for one evening, you are Charles and Diana, Jennifer and Ben, Beyonce and Jay-Z, Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm. I met dozens upon dozens of people at my wedding and talked to nearly everyone there, and I don’t remember a single conversation I had with any of them, which strikes me as a pretty reasonable facsimile of what being a celebrity is actually like. But to those people who talked to me and my wife at our wedding, it was probably the only part of the evening they remember now. Because they got to see the stars of the show.

That is always how I feel when I talk to the couple at a wedding. It’s always, like, a one-minute conversation, at most, when they come around to each table and thank everyone for coming. The conversation is rarely deeper than “what a lovely venue” and “you two look great.” But it’s the highlight of the night, every time, because to get to share even a few seconds of such a big moment in their lives really is a legitimate honor: You feel like every slice of their time that you get is a gift. These are people who, if you see them at any other time in your life or theirs, are just regular people, the sort of people you text with occasionally or maybe try to grab a drink with anytime either one of you can catch a stray evening, which is probably never. But at their wedding, when they are so much in demand, when they have so many other things they have to be doing, you’re grateful for that quick second, that second when they briefly shine their light on you. You feel cool just that they know you.

It’s the moment at every wedding I ever go to I enjoy the most, and it’s one I haven’t been able to experience in quite a while. But that’s all right, because if I am looking to recreate how it feels like to briefly catch the eye of someone, of having them shine that light on you before moving on to something and someone else, I can now find it every day. Because I am the father of a middle schooler.

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My older son William had tryouts for the middle school baseball team this week. Most of the other parents whose kids were trying out stayed and watched the whole practice, but after I dropped William off, I high-tailed it out of there. Part of this is because I don’t want to lurk over him, to have him constantly aware of my presence; I want him to have his own experience, to concentrate on what he’s doing, to rise and fall on his own, without the extra pressure of worrying what his father is thinking about it. That’s the high-minded parental reason; the other, more dominant, almost primal reason is that it stresses me out too much to watch my son being evaluated and judged, to remember how that felt for me when I was younger, how the world can sometimes still feel like that today. Anyway, when I went to pick him up at the end of tryouts, when they were in the middle of a drill, William happened to look up and see me walking toward the field. Almost imperceptibly, he raised his throwing hand in the air, made a fist and mouthed “yeah!” Nothing major, he didn’t even change his stride, he went right back to what he was doing. But he saw me, and he acknowledged me, and I felt his light on me and it was wonderful. And then he went right back to what he was doing.

Middle school represents a lot of things, but more than anything else, what it does is crack the door open, for the first time, to the rest of the world. The comfortable, accommodating bubble of grade school is instantly burst, replaced by new people, new expectations, new emotions, new hormones, new everything. When I think back on my own time in middle school, I remember it less as a fixed singular experience and more as a series of landmines, a constant obstacle course in which the goal is simply to make it to the other side of the room without something blowing up. At the beginning of this school year, a school year that ended yesterday, William wasn’t thinking about getting good grades, or what table to sit at during lunch, or detention, or how to navigate that kid who is always getting into fights, or the importance of standardized test scores, or dating, or social discomfort, or the fear of other people’s judgment. Middle school forces all of those things on you at once. It throws you into a boiling pot with all this awkward humanity swirling around in it. How you come out of it is up to you. If you come out of it.

This is not something specific to William’s middle school, or any middle school. We quite love his middle school. It has dedicated teachers who are invested in their students, an eclectic mix of kids from every possible background and demographic and a principal who has dedicated herself to the lasting, sustainable success of the children under her care, with rousing success. (I know she’s a great middle school principal because I both admire her and I also am constantly afraid, when I’m around her, that I’m going to do something wrong and be sent out into the hall.) We could not possibly be happier with the school: Every time we visit, it feels like we are a part of something strong, and good. But you never know how your kid is going to handle it. You never know how anyone’s will.

I’m delighted to say that William has thrived. He has navigated this new world with grace, confidence and good cheer. His grades are terrific, he has made new friends, he has discovered new interests he would have never been exposed to otherwise. But what we’re most impressed by is how comfortable he is. We went with him to the school last week to tour some pending renovations, and as we walked down the hall, kids were constantly coming up to him and saying hello, peeling off for side conversations, sneaking off to tell funny stories. Now, I suppose it’s possible this is happening because William is secretly everybody’s drug dealer, but I’ll confess that I doubt it. He is just in his place. He is comfortable. He has embraced all this change.

This is all anyone could ever want for their children. It’s important. It’s wonderful. But it’s also incredibly sad. Your child discovers him or herself in a new place and takes all that you have tried to teach them, all the preparation you tried to lay down for them, and they use it to build themselves a life in that new place. Which is the goal. But the thing is: By definition, this new place they are building is a place that doesn’t involve you.

The writer Michael Gerson died last year at the age of 58, and upon his death, The Washington Post ran a series of his old columns for the paper. The best of them, and there are many great ones, involves Gerson reflecting on what it felt like to drop off his older son at college.

I know this is hard on him as well. He will be homesick, as I was (intensely) as a freshman. An education expert once told me that among the greatest fears of college students is they won’t have a room at home to return to. They want to keep a beachhead in their former life.

But with due respect to my son’s feelings, I have the worse of it. I know something he doesn’t — not quite a secret, but incomprehensible to the young. He is experiencing the adjustments that come with beginnings. His life is starting for real. I have begun the long letting go. Put another way: He has a wonderful future in which my part naturally diminishes. I have no possible future that is better without him close.

There is no use brooding about it. I’m sure my father realized it at a similar moment. And I certainly didn’t notice or empathize. At first, he was a giant who held my hand and filled my sky. Then a middle-aged man who paid my bills. Now, decades after his passing, a much-loved shadow. But I can remember the last time I hugged him in the front hallway of his home, where I always had a room. It is a memory of warmth. I can only hope to leave my son the same.

Parenthood offers many lessons in patience and sacrifice. But ultimately, it is a lesson in humility. The very best thing about your life is a short stage in someone else’s story. And it is enough.

It’s a beautiful column, and it is one I think about constantly as my children get older. It is a thrill to watch them go out into the world, to embrace it, to change with it, to give the gift of themselves, to make other people’s lives better simply by existing. They have all the tools to thrive, and it makes your heart sing to watch them use them. They’re going to get to do, and be, and learn, and love, so much. Their lives are just getting started.

But, as Gerson so poignantly points out, what is the beginning of their story is, in many ways, an end of our own. The journey they’re about to go on, the journey that in many ways has already started, that journey has to involve their parents—the people who love them more than they have ever loved anything, the people who look at them and think it’s impossible for anything on this planet to be more wonderful than what we’re looking at right here and right now—less and less with every passing day. We have to fade from the story so they can author their own. We will always be there, when they need us, and surely many times when they don’t. But their world belongs to them now. We will never mean as much to them as we once did. He was a giant who held my hand and filled my sky. Now, they have their own friends, and their own lives, and they are beginning to see us more as people, our flaws, our limitations—and how in order to be who they want, to discover who in fact that is, they have to slowly separate themselves from us. Every day, they get a little bit further away.

That is what’s supposed to happen. That is what must happen. But it still feels like a tiny little sliver of myself forever being peeled off of me. I see my sons and I am so proud. And the more I see, and the prouder I am, the more I can feel them slipping through my fingers.

That’s why it felt like that when I saw William after tryouts, why that old sensation of being excited to see a couple on their wedding day, of having their attention ever so briefly trained on you, why it came rushing back in that moment. My son has so much to see in this world, so much to take in, so much to learn, so much to contribute, so much to change. You can see him absorbing it, and evolving, and improving, and growing. For him to continue to be the incredible person who he is going to be in his life, I know that it will require me being a smaller part of it. I’ve always been aware of this, I suppose; I did it to my parents, after all. But you can already see it happening. You can already yourself recede.

And it’s wonderful. It’s worth all of it. But I still will feel that beam of warmth when, with all that there is for my children to take in, there is that moment when they see me, when I am their focus, the way I once always was, the way I can only occasionally be again. When those moments happen, I will feel cool, I will feel honored, I will feel special, and I will feel grateful. I will bask in that light being shined upon me. There is a whole great big glorious magnificent world out there for these kids. I can’t wait to watch them take it over. But that is all I can do. All I can do is watch.

And, in the end: It is enough.

Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this week, in order of what I believe to be their quality.

1. A Guide to Help Knicks Fans Stay Sane, New York. So: Big Game Seven tomorrow!

2. Seven Surprises From the First Quarter of the Season, MLB.com. The AL Central remains the biggest one to me.

3. This Week’s Five Fascinations, MLB.com. The sweepless Orioles, Bryce Harper’s best team, the oddly hot Rockies, the frustrating Reds and the buzzard’s luck of Reese Olson.

4. This Week’s Power Rankings, MLB.com. Look, the Orioles are in first place!

PODCASTS

Grierson & Leitch, no show this week, Grierson is in Cannes.

Seeing Red, Bernie and I did a big long show doing a 10,000-feet-up look at the Cardinals franchise.

LONG STORY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MORNING … OF THE WEEK

“The One Place in Airports People Actually Want to Be,” Amanda Mull, The Atlantic. This was the final piece for Amanda Mull at The Atlantic; she is moving to Bloomberg Businessweek, a fine publication where she will continue to do great work. But I can’t help but be sad to see her leaving The Atlantic, where I think I read every single word she has written for five years. You should dig into her whole archive, because it’s all good, but here are some of my favorites:

• On the Instapot being too good.

• On GOOP (maybe my favorite).

• On losing brick and mortar stores.

• On multivitamins.

Oh, just read them all. She was particularly great during the pandemic, helping to keep me and many others sane. Thanks, Amanda, what a run. And Go Dawgs.

ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!

This is your reminder that if you write me a letter and put it in the mail, I will respond to it with a letter of my own, and send that letter right to you! It really happens! Hundreds of satisfied customers!

(I am going to answer all of these when I turn in the book, which is very, very soon.)

Write me at:

Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO

“Clark Gable,” The Postal Service. I think I was just behind my time when “Get Up” came out, because I wasn’t into it then and now I am. People get smarter when they get older!

Remember to listen to The Official Will Leitch Newsletter Spotify Playlist, featuring every song ever mentioned in this section.

Also, now there is an Official The Time Has Come Spotify Playlist.

Ran a race with my mom this morning. Run races with your mom!

Best,
Will