Incompeete

Here’s a scenario: You’re doing something. Anything. When suddenly, boom, you need to pee. Like really need to pee. You’re bladder’s about to explode. You’re sure that you’re going to end up urinating more than one of those weird bronze sculptures of babies doing the wiz. What do you do?

Well common sense would tell you, “Go pee you idiot!” But I’m too scared for common sense to even cross my mind. At least I was in first grade.

I’m going to set the stage. First grade. That was my first grade ever. Having skipped kindergarten, grade school was new to me. My primary teacher, Mrs. Bucher, wanted every student to greet her with a “Hey, Mrs. Bucher,” every morning. Except with enthusiasm. “HEY, MRS. BUCHER!”

Now I’m going to raise my hand to point out an exception. Don’t get me wrong, I of the present, not I of the first grade, am pointing out this somewhat common, but fully discouraging outlier. I was in that bag of kids that didn’t scream out “Hey, Mrs. Bucher!” in the morning. And it wasn’t because I was too tired in the morning either – not only did elementary school not start until 9 A.M., but I also didn’t have a giant mass of homework or a giant mass of brain that shouted louder than the kids bellowing to Mrs. Bucher, “Procrastinate!”

No, it was because I was about as reserved as a person can get. I was more reserved than the interest rate of the Federal Reserve on the day I was born. If you think I don’t talk in class right now, imagine that, but then you might as well add a layer of duct tape to my mouth because in first grade, I didn’t talk almost at all.

I don’t really know the reasoning behind why I was essentially a mime in my first year of school. Maybe it was because I was largely unfamiliar with the English language having been raised in a predominantly Mandarin-speaking household. Because sure I might be inherently introvert, but this much? It’s almost unimaginable.

But it’s the truth. Now in addition to being taught the core subjects by Mrs. Bucher, we would also go to other classrooms for physical education, art, or music. I’m going to focus in on music. Mrs. Daigle. Everyone called her Mrs. Bagel. In her class, we learned about basic music theory, thereby finding out that “even George Bush drives fast.” We also played some instruments. I think in first grade, it was mainly xylophones and glockenspiels. In fact, there were three whole rows of these instruments so that everyone in the class could bash them with mallets in lame attempts to learn.

When twenty kids create a cacophony rather than a harmony, things get loud and ugly. Too loud for someone to speak up and as Mrs. Bagel to go to the restroom. Because that certain someone needs to pee. Badly. Not that it would have mattered. Because in the minutes prior to the hullabaloo, that young procrastination loving brain was saying, no whispering, “Shhhhh. Be vewy vewy quiet. I’m hunting wabbits in my imagination.”

So, abiding to Elmer Fuddbrain’s request, I kept silent. I did raise my hand in an attempt to miraculously get the attention of Mrs. Daigle so I could go pee-pee. No response. I should probably walk up to the teacher and ask, right Elmer Fuddbrain?

“No! You’ll wake the wabbits!”

Well, I better trust Elmer Fuddbrain’s judgment then. There is no other solution. Must pee now. I got it! I should just pee in my pants! Brilliant! Okay go let it out. Going. Going. Gone. Done.

“You idiot! Why would you do such a thing?”

Because, Elmer Fuddbrain, I didn’t want to wake the rabbits.

“There are no wabbits. I was just kidding. I’m not Elmer Fudd. I’m just your brain. I don’t know where you’re getting that Looney Tunes imagination from. You haven’t even seen the show at this point in your life yet! Let me make it clear, there are no rabbits.”

A few seconds later, the girl sitting next to me, Sarah, decided it would be a great idea to feels my khakis. I don’t know what about the visibly darker pants made her fingers that were sure to touch a sandwich an hour later want to touch what was clearly pee. All I know is, that was embarrassing.

With a face full of red, I walked up and asked Mrs. Bagel if I could go to the nurse. Why didn’t I do that a minute ago?

If you see me in a classroom today, I might raise my hand to participate, or maybe not. That brain has made some serious progress. Sure I don't imagine crazy scenarios like hunting rabbits in my brain anymore, but that's because I want to be in the real world rather than conjuring up fake stories to pass the time or to distract from the urge to pee. If you compare my word count on a given day between now and sixth grade, when I came to New Paltz, or even ninth, when I started high school, it has definitely increased drastically. Sure I might have dug my own grave from a social standpoint because of this common, debilitating outlier. But I’m climbing my way back up.

I’m working on it.

冠礼?

It's a bit weird. Having just Googled it, the 冠礼 ("Guan Li"), or idea of coming of age in Chinese Confucian culture, occurs when one turns twenty. What's weird is that my parents have always said from a young age that that date would be on the day that I turned twelve. Or fourteen. I don't remember and it really doesn't matter. What matters in perspective is that based on what they had said, I'd be an adult.

I’m not sure the reasoning behind the six or eight year disparity in when one comes of age. Maybe they weren’t following the Confucian aspect of Chinese culture there – in my family, the culture is essentially a soup with bits of Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, and Americanism stirred together and served in a bowl with chopsticks or a spoon, you choose.

Or maybe my parents wanted me to grow up faster. To mature quickly so that I could take care of myself and my younger brother more quickly. Living in a middle class household where my dad makes an above average amount of money, I cannot say we are not well off. But with my dad getting on in years in proximity to the standard age of retirement and neither my brother nor I having gone through college (let alone potentially medical school), my mom even took up a job to help sustain for the future.

The moral of the tangent is that when neither of my parents were home for reasons x or y, I was de facto in charge of the house. I was to make sure nothing bad happened to or because of my brother or me (even if my mom would call every so often to tell me to prepare something or to do a task).

I think that little anecdote shows that there was not really one set event or moment that marked my transition into adulthood. I see it more as parallel to the biological punctuated equilibrium theory in which sudden spurts of evolution occur during an otherwise stable environment. In this comparison, my maturity would be likened to these evolutionary change spurts. From my experience, my growing mentally as I come more and more of age can be summed in that exact phrase: “more and more.” There have been little events that have gradually shifted me towards adulthood.

Like when my family went to China three summers ago. With my dad having to go to other places for his business trip with his company, my mom, brother, and I went to Beijing. Technically, I was the male of the house for those few days. And although that meant less than it sounds like, and rightfully so, I was still expected to watch my brother to make sure he didn’t wander off or anything and to help my mom make judgment calls so that when she started feeling as if she had to throw up from what must have been bad seafood, we could figure out what to do.

It’s the little things like getting three texts on the night that I was in Syracuse for the NYSML math competition compared to three plus three times three calls during the school field trips to Boston and Washington in middle school.

In Chinese culture, there’s no event similar to a Bar Mitzvah in which one crosses the line from boy to man. But who knows? Maybe by the time my “Guan Li” has passed, there will be one big moment that marks my transition into adulthood. Or maybe not. Maybe by the time I’m twenty, little events here and there will have turned me fully into an adult. Who knows?