Questioning Reality -- Revisiting The Truman Show

This past weekend, my 14-year-old son and I watched The Truman Show, a film that came out the year I graduated high school. It was his idea. "Mom, this is a really great movie," he told me. 

I remember when the movie came out, and how it impacted me. There was so much to think about -- the ethics of a "reality"-ish show that involved duping the first child ever adopted by a corporation, a marriage between Truman and a paid actress, the slandering of a woman who truly cared for Truman and tried to tell him the truth, the perfectly synchronized and orchestrated existence of Truman by a man who both loved and wanted to control him. 

I remember thinking at the time that there is so much that we just willingly accept without looking any closer -- and this was before I had left my hometown, before I went to college and met people with different skin colors and backgrounds. Boy, did I have a lot to learn back then (and now -- aren't we all works in progress?).

My son -- the "baby" -- and I have started to have some more serious conversations lately. He is 4 years younger than his (soon to graduate high school) sister and 6 years younger than his (married, established in the military) brother. What a range! There is a lot of our collective traumatic history that he didn't put together, until more recently. He has a strong intuition and could sense when things were off, but now that he's older, he's asking questions -- much like Truman. He has dots to connect. 

He's also worried about his future. You remember how it was, leaving middle school, going to the high school planning meeting, being expected to know if you were heading to college or the military or the workforce, and feeling like every adult everywhere had Big Plans for You. 

I also realized that my youngest son has missed the backstory. The "Bigs," as I've called his older siblings for as long as I can remember, either witnessed consciously certain events, or have been told stories as they've encountered various curves in the road along the way. When I had breakfast with my youngest this weekend, I realized he didn't even know where I was born. #epicmomfail

We all make assumptions, right? I assumed my youngest knew I had moved when I was 9, that I took a gap year after high school (before they were called gap years), that I had foolishly followed a boy to Williamsport, that I had my cosmetology license (did he think I just cut his hair because I watched a YouTube video? I'll never know...), that I was once a vocal performance major. 

Yep. That's a lot of assumptions. So I started from the beginning. And I let him interrupt and ask questions, even hard ones, like, "Why did you fall in love with Dad? I just don't get it." He knows no question is off-limits, just as I've assured the "Bigs."  I met him where he is, and I'm excited to see where we go from here. 

Kind of like Truman, at the edge of the world he knows --

Unlike Truman, though, my son has someone who has been loosely orchestrating his life, not with ratings in mind, but with his well-being and completeness in mind. My young son was shielded from many things as he grew up and I left an abusive marriage. I now know, from the science on brain development, that our belief that children are resilient and don't really see abuse is simply not true. Whether my son can remember the details of our life before is irrelevant. It made an impact on his development. What I take hope in, though, is how we weathered the storm together. He has always known -- just like his siblings -- that he is unconditionally loved by me (and then by their stepfather, who is more than a father than a step, full stop). 

Despite the producer of The Truman Show warning Truman of the dangers of the outside world, Truman -- having faced his biggest fear of water -- boldly steps through the next door, one that he opens for himself, not one that is planned and scripted by anyone else. And that is exactly what I tried to convey to my youngest son, the one whose exit from the nest will rip my heart out (as it should). What he does with his "one wild and precious life" is truly up to him -- not in the pressured way his soon-to-be principal tried to inspire him at the freshman scheduling meeting, but in the honest, real, beautiful way that I've tried to convey to all my children. They are already worthy and perfect and loved. There is no need to strive to earn approval or to prove their worth. I want them each to follow their passion and creativity and empathy. There is a whole world waiting out there -- from Truman and for all of us. 

Truman is nearly 30 years old (the show had been running for over 10,000 consecutive days before Truman starts getting his itch to go to Fiji) when he sails across the expanse and finds his door to freedom. It's never too late to realize that we are worthy and enough and loved. Maybe today is the day you start, too.