I never know when or how my next story will show up. This past Monday I was driving my sixteen-year-old to school. It was an unusually bright and sunny warm October morning. My son sat quietly, looking out the window. Later that same day I was planning to return to one of my old activities, playing with the Toronto Pinball League. I haven’t played regularly since before COVID and I’ve been wanting to expand and get myself out of my house more again.
My wife and oldest child is currently visiting their parents in California, so it’s just me and my younger at home. As I told him that I was going to play with my pinball league and be out of the house that night, a thought crossed my mind – would he like to join me?
I wrestled with that thought. My immediate inner critic declared No sixteen-year-old wants to hang out with their father! He’d rather sit on his computer playing games with his friends all night. I fought through those feelings. I asked him, “Would you like to come?”
“Sure”, he responded. “I haven’t played pinball in a long time”.
Wow, that was sure easy, I thought. I was immediately proud of myself for pushing through that inner voice.
I also reflected on how only a few months ago this same son turned down doing a little road trip with me. Instead of being an authoritarian I let him off the hook then with a “No, for now”. It was disappointing for me on that day, but felt like the right thing to do and better for our relationship to give him some space.
On the same car ride I decided to push my luck a bit and told him I had been looking for other special things we can do this week and how there was a Broadway show (“Come From Away”) playing in Toronto, and we could go see it as well this week.
“OK, I’ll go”, he said.
“Awesome!” I responded, “We can have dinner at a restaurant downtown before the show.”
A little while later in the car ride, he started to notice banners for “Come From Away” lining the streets. We drive down this street every day and he had never noticed them before, and now his brain has noticed it because we were talking about the show.
I remarked, “Aren’t brains wild?” as he observed the banners. It was a cool demo in how our world is filtered for what our brains think is important for us.
That evening we headed off for the pinball league, first meeting at a restaurant with some of the other regulars and my old friends from the league.
“This will be a great opportunity for you to practice your hand shake”, I told him on the way in.
“I’ve already been thinking about that”, he reported back.
I watched him shake hands as he said hello and re-introduced himself to the others at the table (most had not seem him since he was a little kid).
He sat at the table and stayed off his phone the whole time, without my asking. He knew that would be important to me, and make a better impression with the others.
And then we headed to the venue that housed about 30 pinball machines and were put in separate groups for our league night.
“How did you end up doing?” I asked later in the night.
“I came first in John Wick.” He was excited that they had made a pinball game based on his favorite movie series.
(I would have loved to have posted a picture of us together playing pinball but it wasn’t on my mind to create content then, and simply had a nice night out with my son. No photos taken.)
Later tonight we will go see the Broadway show, and I’m thrilled it came about by my open ask if he wanted to come, and giving him space earlier and having a choice instead of telling him he was going to come. It’s made this week that much sweeter.
This experience has been a reminder of what’s possible when the “Yes”, whatever form that is, is given some space to show up. I’m especially pleased having these experiences with my sixteen-year-old and a new story to share.
When might be the next time you can you next let a “No, for now” have some space to breath?
