Where do we find the pulse of a people? How do we engage and inspire those around us? We look to music; we look to art; we look to entertainment, as the outward manifestations of our own hopes and desires. In my case, you need only look at what’s on my DVR to see what’s going on in my head and in my life. Surely our TV shows have shifted over the years. What began as a series of Law and Order and crime shows has morphed into a collection of narratives that now parallel our own life experience (luckily the crime shows were not an outward manifestation of my own hopes or desires OR parallel to my own life experience). “New Girl,” the story of loft-mates trying to make it as young professionals, comes in third now behind two new shows. The first, “Life in Piece”s, has four interconnected storylines- one for each branch of the Short family. There is an older couple with three grown children, who have their own relationships that develop throughout the show. When the show debuted last year, I would often gravitate to the narrative of the couple with a young child. While the story takes place in Los Angeles, it is very Jacksonville- the intergenerational day-to-day involvement in each other’s lives; every day is like Thanksgiving.

To top our show list is a new drama, “This is Us.” It is the story about the family lives and connections of several people who all share the same birthday.  A key birthday takes place during the fall of 1980, 36 years ago. Each week, I cry a little. Each week, I reminisce of what it meant to grow up in the 80s. Each week, I obsess with the historical inaccuracies of the storyline.Each week, I am reminded of how relationships are formed: where the notions of grudges and favorites are cultivated and how a moment in time can affect our future. The more we watch, the more we affirm that the story of This is Us is the story of “us.”

This week, we encounter another storyline spearheaded by another late-30something character experiencing a life change of his own. Medieval commentator Rashi estimates that Isaac was 37 years old when his mother passed away. At the age of 40, Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death (Genesis 24:67).

 

 

Three years after her death, Isaac brings his wife to his mother’s tent. Three years of mourning. Three years of not being able to talk about his feelings, of not being able to enter his mother’s tent- to be able to reflect upon his mother’s life as well as his own upbringing. Only through Rebekah is he finally able to come home.

 

Coming home- for holidays, for liminal moments both bitter and sweet, takes us to a familiar, albeit disorienting place. A Huffington Post article from last December entitled, “How to Avoid Reverting to your Teenage Self Over the Holidays” stated:

 

There’s a joke that captures the feeling of “regression” that many adults experience when they go home to spend the holidays with their families. It goes like this: For every day you’re home with your family, you lose five years. So you should keep your trip short enough that you’ll be old enough to drive away.

 

“It’s variable. At different stages of your life you might regress more or less,” Nadine Kaslow, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist at Emory University and editor of the Journal of Family Psychology, told The Huffington Post. “Maybe you go back to your room, which may still be more decorated like a child’s room. You return to the patterns you had when you lived there. It’s challenging, especially early on, to find your way as an adult.”

 

We all fall into old habits. Grown adults talk to their parents with teenage drama, while parents treat grown up children like middle schoolers. We revert. We take steps back. We hold grudges from years long ago. And even when we are not attending a family gathering,  we could easily be attending one of those gatherings where we pray none of our real feelings slip out at the dinner table.

 

Coming home means sometimes moving backwards- in time and in relationship building. As a recent S.C Johnson campaign put its it, “When families gather, things get messy.”

 

There is one tradition related to coming home that has changed my outlook. It is the nostalgic art of “going through stuff.”

 

Our family is currently undergoing a process of high level de-cluttering. I would characterize it as a “triangle of memory” in constant rotation. We inherit toys, books, and outfits from friends who are gracious to share so that our girls might enjoy what their children once enjoyed. As our own parents downsize, we inherit books, tchotchkes, art projects and more from our own childhoods, while simultaneously deciding what we should retain as keepsakes for our own daughters. It is a unique position to decide which of my own handprints to hold on to as I think about all of the take-home projects I continue to stockpile. Who shall live and who shall die? Who by watercolor and who by puff-paint?

 

One such heirloom in my possession is a time capsule from almost a quarter century ago, intended to be opened in the year 2000.   Well I opened it up…two years ago. Most obvious was the folded up Worcester Telegram & Gazette sports section dated Wednesday, May 12, 1993. At first glance I noticed the 4-0 shutout pitched by Red Sox ace Roger Clemens, an article entitled, “Baseball Ignores Tradition,” chastising the creation of a wild card.  The NBA and NHL playoffs were in high gear, with Michael Jordan once again wrecking the Cavs’ dreams. May 12,1993 was a week before one of the most highly anticipated series finales of all time. Sam Malone, played by actor Ted Danson, would finally close up the bar “Cheers,” where everybody knew your name.

 

My eye gravitated to the scoreboard and transactions section of the paper, a somewhat mundane and trivial section, yet an area I would routinely memorize each day as a child. Some notes elicited a smile:

 

“The Seattle Mariners optioned Mike Hampton, pitcher, to Jacksonville of the Southern League.”

 

That probably wouldn’t have meant much to me if I had opened the capsule back in 2000. Other notes elicited a sadder response:

 

Boston Celtics guard Reggie Lewis was cleared to resume his basketball career after doctors discounted an earlier diagnosis of a possibly life-threatening heart ailment. Doctors say Lewis suffers from a neural condition that can be treated with medication.

 

Two months later, Lewis collapsed at an off-season practice at Brandeis University and died at the age of 27.

 

We often look into the mirror to ask, “What if I could go back? What could I tell my younger self? How could I guide me through stages and events in my life differently?” Or, we look at childhood as an escape…a world oversimplified, naïve, pediatric, scheduled, ordered.

 

I realized I should look at this the other way around: how can my childhood, my view on life, my hopes and dreams, reenergize me to be a better father, a better husband, a better person?

 

 

And so the time capsule continued to convey messages in a series of letters to my future self:

 

“Favorite Superhero in my time”: Superman

 

It’s shifted to Batman, but a strong choice nonetheless.

 

My hobby: Politics

My future: Chief Rabbi and lawyer of the state of Israel

 

My family’s hobbies:

 

My father’s are going shopping at either BJs or Spags, making corny jokes, and acting like a very little kid. My sister doesn’t have any hobbies or interests now because she has a well organized social life and relationship. My mother’s hobbies are just being nice, helping others, and just being happy.

 

The letters go on and on. Much of the language of my messages to my future self revolve around peace, love, and harmony, reading very much like a personal prayer at a Bar Mitzvah. So…what would we think if we read our Bar or Bat Mitzvah speech? Would we find it trivial and over-simplistic? Or would we gravitate to its positivity, to the message of change and to the aspirations of a maturing young adult?

 

Our story, every story, has a beginning. As the animated film, “Inside out” envisioned, the core memories from our childhood power different aspects of our personality.

When we dismiss the frustations of our youth, when we dread turning back to our teenage self, we may inadvertently block the thoughts and dreams that make up our core self.  We may be swift to dismiss or shove it all aside as being over idealistic, but I believe that kids have it right. While each of us may not have a physical time capsule, we all have windows into our childhood.

 

So when you do revert (we all do), when you step back in your relationships with old family and friends, when old grudges take center stage, take that step back as an opportunity to delve into your youth once again. What would it mean to thank God at night for your 3 closest friends rather than the 30th like from a friend on Facebook? What would it mean to sing loudly without inhibition because no one’s taught you yet that doing so would be embarrassing? What would it mean to take the stigma out of the word “juvenile” to appreciate the teachings that our childhood brings to the table?

 

 

 

Look back at your earliest aspirations. Transform that innocence, that hope into action; reaffirm who you want to be. And if we look back only to see pain and frustration, take the struggles of our youth as a guide through the pain that tomorrow may bring.

 

Every story has a beginning. It grabs our attention and brings the reader in. As we give thanks to all of the gifts in our lives over this holiday week, it seems most important to appreciate our own narrative. We look to other stories to inspire, when sometimes, we have to turn our own story on its head. In knowing ourselves, embracing our opening pages as much as the latest chapters, we allow a rich narrative to take shape.