Ordinary Days: The(se) Good Old Days

I’ll be honest with you here: I was all ready to write this month’s column on memories of my childhood, how I tend to long for the past and how I’ve recreated the best parts of it in some way in my novels. But then Andy Bernard messed it all up.

You know Andy Bernard, right? The goofy, acapella-singing, slightly neurotic character on “The Office.” The one who yelled “Tuna!” every time he saw his co-worker Jim. The one who punched the wall in anger, yet who tended to wear his heart on his sleeve.

Just when I was about to send this column on its merry way to the editor, I saw a quote on Instagram from dear old Andy, and I had one of those “aha” moments. It was so perfectly timed, I almost laughed out loud. Andy gave this line on the last episode of the show: “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.”

To be even more honest, all this was happening the same week my kids were going back to school and I was feeling all kind of emotions — everything from “Thank the Lord it’s school time and I can go back to actually getting some things done around here,” to “My babies are growing up, Kate’s two years away from middle school, and one day they’re going to leave me!”

As I read Andy’s words in the middle of that emotional whirlwind, I felt little pieces in my mind rearranging, sliding into a more settled place.

It’s true that I tend to look back at my childhood as idyllic. It wasn’t perfect, of course, and I’m sure my parents can remember plenty of situations that were every bit as trying as the ones I find myself in sometimes, but looking back, it’s easy to think, “We had it so much better back then.”

Through my rose-tinted glasses, those good old days seemed slower, clearer, easier. The worst thing I was likely to see on TV was Blanche Devereaux giving her come hither glances or Michael Jackson’s scary wolf face in Thriller (those whiskers!). Birthday parties were as simple or as elaborate as parents and kids wanted them to be, without Pinterest staring everyone in the face with shiny examples of birthday party perfection. Fewer choices meant easier decisions about everything from what to watch on TV to where to shop for toys to what type of milk to buy at the store. Conversations could be slow, unhurried, devoid of the temptation to grab a phone and check headlines.

Children these days will never know an internet-free world. They’ll have to go through their teen years knowing any silly mistake they make could end up on social media. More importantly, they’ll never know what it’s like to have to time their bathroom breaks to a 2-minute long commercial break.

And parents these days? We parents hear stories in the news every day that make us rethink letting ourselves, much less our kids, walk out of the house at all. We have to navigate the ins and outs of technology we don’t understand (but our kids do), then try to regulate what that technology brings into our house and into our kids’ minds. As our children grow, there are so many more distractions that further pull them away from us.

Then, thankfully, just when I’m crying into my coffee, here comes Andy Bernard reminding us that we’re smack in the middle of the good old days and we need to pay attention.

We don’t have to look back and grieve the days we no longer have, but we can look around us, see what and who we have now, and rejoice over it. Enjoy it all. My faith tells me there’s a reason why God has me parenting now and not in the 1980s. And He’s equipping me to parent in these particular times with these particular people, with all the situations and fears we find ourselves in today.

So thank you, Andy Bernard, for stopping my emotional vortex with your wise words and reminding me that these days are good, we’re where we’re supposed to be, and somehow we — and our kids — are better for it.