Emerging from a Cocoon

My brother flew into Newark on the red-eye this past weekend. My joy at seeing him in the flesh for the first time in over 18 months suppressed any irritation I may have had about rising at 5AM. My brother gives the best hugs, and I have missed being enveloped by him. I've missed him.

It's easy with Matt. We know when to talk, when to leave each other to our quiet places, when to complain, when to roll our eyes and move on. We banter. We kibitz. We perfect our dance in the kitchen as we prep meals together. These are things that Covid couldn’t take from us, despite the time spent physically apart.

My kids love their uncle. I mean, he makes video games for a living, so why wouldn’t they? But they also love his easy way with them, his quirky sense of humor, and his willingness to treat them like real people from the time they were young. They’ve missed him.

Because of their special relationship, it was particularly cool that they were able to share an important part of their summer with him during his visit. Sunday, we dropped them at sleep-away camp, a place they have been going since they were seven years old. The camp is affiliated with our church, and it reminds me of the summer camp that I attended decades ago, also affiliated with the church. Krislund was a magical place for me - a place of song, laughter, and friendship that allowed me to grow as a person and as a human.

Matt also attended Krislund, so we reminisced about our experiences over the weekend. The story of his hypothermia (which I didn’t remember) led into our hikes to the Bald Spot and the end-of-week bonfires. As we talked, more surfaced for me, and all of a sudden, I realized I had to talk to my kids about what they might experience this week.

They are, after all, going into 9th grade.

The last 18 months have been difficult for everyone, but for my budding teenagers, it has been just weird.  

On March 13, 2020, my children - most children in the NJ geographic region - entered a cocoon. We did not know then that this cocoon would last over a year. They entered as 12-year-old children and emerged as young adults. Though I witnessed the transformation from inside the cocoon alongside my son and my daughter, I truly recognized it for what it was when I watched their classmates march at eighth grade graduation in June.

I sat, perched on the edge of my folding chair, device ready for camera action, waiting for the procession to begin.  The cafetorium was set with seats in pairs of two, the allowable limit per family, and I knew my job was to capture the moment for my children’s grandparents, all of whom wanted to be there to see them graduate from 8th grade, none of whom were permitted by the school’s mandate.

My kids and I agreed that we didn’t really understand the point of the ceremony.  It was just 8th grade, after all, but after the 15 months they had just experienced, it was a moment to recognize their effort, their sacrifices, and their growth.

Growth.  

The parade began, students filing past me, and I struggled to recognize them. Masked, these teens that I had known since kindergarten, were virtually unrecognizable. But it wasn’t just the masks. They were tall. They were lanky. They were long-legged. They were… mature.  

There are four stages in the Butterfly Life Cycle. From the egg comes the caterpillar, whose job is to “eat and eat and eat” (not unlike my kids during Covid). All of this eating helps them to grow - up to 100 times larger!  Then, the pupa stage, which lasts for weeks, months, or even years, brings “big changes happening inside.” Finally, a butterfly emerges, looking “very different from the larva” that had entered the cocoon.

As I watched the children - teens - enter the room and process to their seats, I realized the little caterpillars who had entered their cocoons had become butterflies.

The transformation was dramatic.  I didn’t recognize half of them.  Many I questioned. “Is that… Brynn???” The girls, in their “trying to be older” dresses, showing their long legs and newly developed chests, made me wonder whether their sweetness had similarly evolved. Nearly all of the boys had completed their first growth spurt, the one that pushes them toward high school, if not quite toward manhood. Their broad shoulders and lanky frames did not fit them all just yet. They hunched, perhaps unsure of themselves, walking in front of such a big crowd inside these new, bigger bodies. Floppy hair, unhidden by the baseball caps that I had seen a few times over the past few weeks on the field, indicated a new style. It hid their eyes, and I could not quite tell...  “Is that… Cole?”

There was Thad with a new saunter and Mara in high heels. There was Anthony towering even higher over the group than he had before and Avery with newfound confidence. There was Crew, who I used to know as Carolina, who had become a beautiful butterfly.

This transformation happened slowly in my own home, spread out over the 15 months of our family’s cocoon, and I missed the enormity of it. My kids and their classmates, many of whom I had known since they were toddlers, had emerged bigger, stronger, and more beautiful.

Going through the pandemic was difficult for this age group. Normally they would be navigating social pressures, dating, and friend groups alongside an increased focus on academics and extracurriculars. But for these kids, almost all of this preparation for what is to come as high schoolers was taken away, mixed up, shifted. I’ve commented to friends that following this class into high school would be a great sociological experiment. Are friend groups busted? Are cliques as strong? Do they know how to interact with the opposite gender? With their own gender? Do they know how to date? Do they feel the same tingly emotions that young adolescents typically feel about people they “like”?

I know for my kids it's been, well, weird. They haven’t evolved in the way young teens normally would.  They didn’t have the opportunity to do so, stuck at home with only their family, relegated to school behind masks or a screen. As my daughter says constantly, she lost all her social skills. They still have a lot to learn about boy/girl (or same gender) relationships, navigating social groups, and responding to peer pressure.

And this is why I warned them that they might see people pairing off at camp this week. I know it happened thirty years ago when I went to sleep-away camp. It was an innocent time, where we could explore a range of teenage emotions in a safe space. My kids missed a year of that exploration (both at school and at camp), and I wonder what they will tell me when they come home this weekend. I wonder whether they will have emerged from a new cocoon. And if not, I wonder when the next transformation will happen. I’m pretty sure whenever they emerge, I will get to see two even more beautiful butterflies.

Photo by Maurits Bausenhart on Unsplash