This is a guest post by Joe Sarmiento, also known as @socalsalty on Twitter. Why is he salty? Joe spends lots of time on the ocean pursuing a life-long passion: fishing. Joe also writes on socalsalty: Adventures in fishing from Southern California.
Recently, I had the opportunity to take my kids on a trip to the Pacific Northwest. My parents still live in the area and I like to bring their grandkids up at least once a year to see them. My son and I got to spend some time, just the two of us, before his sister joined us later in the week. During that time, I arranged for the both us to go on a little fishing adventure. We traveled down the Washington/Orgeon border and went on a guided salmon trip on the Columbia River.
One of the things I noticed about Jake as he interacted with the other folks on the boat, or even with his cousins later in the week, was that although he was receptive to the new people and experiences he was presented with, he took great pride in his identity…being a part of our family, being from Southern California, being Unsalted (his nickname given by the crew of the New Del Mar). I was proud of the confidence he displayed in his new surroundings. When his sister Juliana joined us later in the week, although they had their typical brother/sister spats I watched him take care to make her feel comfortable in the new surroundings.
When the vacation was over, as we headed back home to Southern California, I reflected on how Jake would be going to a new school this Fall. He just graduated from 5th grade where he was one of the biggest, smartest, most athletic kids in school. Now, he’d be going to a brand new school, where he’d be a little kid again, where there would be new smart (smarter?) kids to compete with in class, better athletes to compete with on the field/court etc. I remembered that transition being one of the tougher ones for me growing up. I asked him about it…whether he was scared at all. “No, not really. Nicholas (his best friend) is going to be there. Nick has an older brother who’s an 8th grader (the big kids). There are some guys I played basketball with this summer who’ll be there. And I bet I’ll be the only kid in school who’s caught a 31 lb fish. I can’t wait to tell everyone what I did this summer!”
I smiled a big smile. Jake certainly has his moments of fear and doubt, but thankfully this big transition to a new school isn’t one of them. There’s been a lot change the last couple years with his mother and I splitting up, dealing with Dad weekends and the associated shuffling between households that experience involves, and then just being an 11 year old kid and everything that stage in life entails. I’m very proud of how he’s weathered it all. People always tell me that “kids are resilient” “they can handle a lot” etc. I know this fact to be true in my head, but I’m still fearful at times of how all this change may be affecting him. It’s nice to know that the care and love his mother and I have given him through all this change has helped him grow into this confident young man. The experiences we’ve thought to engage him with…basketball camp, Tom Sawyer camp, fishing trips and just the love we’ve strived to give to him and his sister (despite what’s going on between us), have given him a good base to draw from, feel comfort in, and have the confidence to face life’s challenges…be they a new school or a 31lb Chinook salmon.
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