generation x paying it forward

via tan genghui

by Guest Blogger, Malena Lott
Novelist and Brand Consultant, Oklahoma
Web site: Malena Lott
Twitter: @malenalott
Novels: The Stork Reality and Dating DaVinci

My grandparents met in a tiny café in western Oklahoma where my grandmother waitressed, serving up cups of joe and banana cream pie to the townsfolk. My grandma, then 15, hid her age from the handsome sailor who took one look at the beautiful young woman and told his Navy buddy, “That’s the gal I’m gonna marry one day.”

A World War II Ship Out To Sea
So began the courtship of the people who ended up meaning everything to how I was raised and who I would become. By the time my grandma fessed up to the twenty-one year old sailor that she would have to get her parent’s consent to marry because she wasn’t yet sixteen, he was already head over heels in love and had asked her to marry him in a letter he’d written on his bunk in the World War II ship out at sea.

Generations: How We Get To Where We Are
I’ve thought a lot about generations and how we get to where we are by looking back at where we’ve come from, even more so after reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers about why people are successful, or not. I’d always assumed that my own stitches to personal success were a result of the opportunities I’d been given, trumping any DNA attributes to success. I believe life coaches call them Life Changers, and for me, one unhappy one – the break-up of my parent’s marriage - was met soon after by a better one - my grandparent’s decision to seek guardianship over my two sisters and me when I was just four years old.

Now I realize my own history is more than the good fortune of great guardians. The flip side is a darker journey that gets just as much credit for how I live today. My fear of abandonment and anxiety over losing my grandparents and being thrown back into a sea of uncertainty fueled my Type-A tendencies, beginning as early as kindergarten. I didn’t want to rock the boat, for good reason. Perhaps my over-achieving personality came not just from wanting to please the people who gave me opportunities in life (of which there were several) but because of a deeper-seeded desire to be loved, protected and make my way in the world in case I had to.

It’s as if my reptilian brain, the part that knows flight-or-fight instinct, activated my toddler senses to learn quickly, study the horizon and adapt to get the most advantage out of a situation. I was going to know the answer before the teacher called on me, do the extra credit even though I didn’t need it, and read as many books as I could from the library because there were things I still didn’t know that I might need to know.

That Middle Generation
What’s missing, I’ve found, is just as important as what is there. For me, that middle generation, the coupling that brought me into the world, was a mystery I was often too terrified to figure out. Since my grandparents were paternal, it meant I did have contact with my father, though not often and not satisfying. He seemed to flit in and out of my life with the winds, and usually they coincided with events such as birthday parties and holidays, though his “new” family grew with each visit.

The story of my mother (and her absence) is even more complicated, and became the kindle for the most difficult novel I’ve ever written. As I’m editing it now, I’m reminded that one’s losses attribute to our lives as greatly as the wins and it’s how we deal with hardships that leads to how we embrace or allude success. If the novel is well received, then it will be especially ironic that my deepest pain could bring me, and others, such joy.

The Next Generation
When I had children of my own, my focus – to survive and thrive – shifted to that of the next generation, and what I could do to contribute to their livelihood. It was only while writing my bleed-on-the-page novel that I realized I’d been thinking all wrong. My children are not experiencing the same childhood that I did. They don’t think of me as I did my grandmother. Their expectations and fears are their own, not mine, and vice versa. While my own parenting style has resulted from my life experience, I must honor that they are, as of yet, unwounded souls basking in the riches of a functional family.

While it’s satisfying to know that my legacy will include stories that will live on, the measurement for success I care most about is that I have paid it forward with my children: you are safe, loved and encouraged to make your mark on the world in that special way that only you are able.