I knew it was hanging there, waiting. I mean, that's the way I've come to live my life...knowing it's up there. It's always just a matter of time till it falls.
Anybody who knows me knows how much I love shoes...but I've gotten away from shopping for them (when I have the funds) and moved toward expecting big heavy ones to fall on my head. I've fooled myself into thinking that I'm helping myself somehow by living with the expectation that the worst is going to happen...that by expecting bad things, I'll either be relieved when they don't happen, or resigned when they do.
But it doesn't really work. Maybe I'm finally accepting that being a pessimist just isn't worth the energy. Because living that way tends to kind of suck the happiness out of your day...
Oh, the shoe...yeah, it clunked me on the head yesterday. Things had been going deceptively well, and I had relaxed a bit. I actually had a day and a night to myself last weekend. D. and K. went on a Scout trip, and my mom graciously agreed to keep S. for the night. It was heaven just to sit in my house and do whatever I wanted. Solitude is a rare and beautiful thing, and I soaked it up. Then, so far, we've had a pretty good week, sprinkled with the usual minor disturbances, but nothing big. Just as I was about to BREATHE for a change, yesterday afternoon my cell phone rang. *cue ominous music*
It was S.'s teacher. She had been acting a bit odd lately, missing days of school and so forth - and we were suspicious. I thought she might be pregnant...but it turns out she's leaving after this term of school. Her husband found a job 2 hours away, and so...that's it. I felt the light go out of the otherwise beautiful day. This woman has been a godsend, if such a thing exists. S.'s teacher in his kindergarten year was a helmet...I mean, this guy didn't have a clue. We struggled through that year and school was a constant source of stress for everyone concerned. But then they awarded him a pink slip, and we moved on. Then his current teacher arrived, and after a week we were elated by the way she handled the classroom and encouraged by her quiet strength as she dealt with S.'s behaviors. Since then he has made tremendous progress. In the year and half he's been under her supervision, he has come to ADORE going to school. As I've mentioned, he is reading now, and doing amazingly well.
And she's LEAVING.
I can admit that my first reaction was one of anger. My life revolves around S. Our whole family dances to the rhythm he improvises. So how in the hell does his teacher think she's going to just up and leave us, high and dry? She can't live her life and go with her husband! Where are your priorities, lady?
The rational part of me (hey, it's small, but it's there!) knew that was just a dumb way to be. But I let myself feel angry, because I've learned not to squash any feeling that needs to be felt. It's just not good for you, you know? But I kept it in control and muttered the necessary, "Well, we're happy for you guys, but we're sad to see you go." (Translation: How could you DO this to us? School was the one thing I didn't worry about!)
But now it IS time to worry. Or, gritting my teeth while trying to be more positive: it's time to be concerned. It's time to put on the gear and get ready to do battle. To advocate for my child, as the PC-patrol puts it. Forget how I don't WANT to do this again. Forget how I'm sick and tired of having to fight for things. Remember S. and his progress, and make sure that continues. I've put in the phone calls to the higher-ups in the school system. Now it's a matter of waiting for them to get around to calling me back so that I can begin to make sure everyone involved has S.'s best interests at heart.
Still, I find myself shaking my head over the cosmic joke that is my life (to borrow a phrase from a friend of mine). When I told my mom about the teacher leaving, she said, "I swear...it's like we get one thing taken care of and something ELSE happens." Ain't it the truth, Ma?
It begins to get very difficult to make sense out of life when you try to see cause and effect. Some people seem to skate through life, blissfully unaware of how their actions (or lack of) can impact others. You know who I'm talking about...the people whose lives never get touched by any real tragedy, or the people who seem to stumble into windfall after windfall, never doing anything to earn what they have... I, on the other hand, was raised as a good Baptist girl. If you're good, God will bless you. If you're bad, God will curse you. Simple! It's a fantastic way to grow up, isn't it? God is a big mean man who's just WAITING for you to screw up. So I obligingly became a perfectionist. The better I did in school, the prouder my parents were. "She never gives us any trouble," they'd pontificate to their friends. Oh, dear parental unit, I got into plenty of trouble. YOU just never knew about it. Talk about pressure. The point is I taught myself from an early age that as long as I did the "right" thing, or at least it LOOKED like I was doing the right thing, everything would be all right. And it was. For a while.
Now, I've learned some lessons. Life has jerked me around plenty. All that goodness I stored up? Not worth a hill o'beans...at least not for the purposes I had originally intended. At heart I'm still a "good" person...I'd like to think I have ethics, integrity, and stuff. But I discovered, as my favorite writer-who-happens-to-be-a-drummer, Neil Peart, did, that the "you DO good, you GET good" philosophy doesn't hold water. Sometimes...a LOT of times...you do good, and you get kicked in the teeth. Being a whole person, living life fully and well, and doing my best to be a good person...I can't do that to see what it'll get me. We've learned that's not the way it works, haven't we? No, you do that because...well, just because. The alternative is unacceptable. It feels wrong, it's negative. It's a bummer, man.
So now what? Do I give in and become a dried up old cynic? I've got plenty of reasons to do that. Some days I literally glory in being as snarky and pessimistic as I can. But ultimately that's just a mask I wear. The real me comes out, and at the craziest times, too. Last weekend when I was by myself at home, making myself breakfast, I found myself humming. The simple domestic act of making eggs and bacon, and sitting down in my (temporarily) quiet living room made me HAPPY. Either I've gone off the deep end, or...I still have hope. I have a tiny little sanctuary deep inside...a place that I can go, and know that all is well. Not forever. Maybe not even for a day. But for an hour, I felt peace.
The other night I was reading to S., and I stepped outside myself long enough to look at him...really LOOK. His shining hair, tousled in that little boy way, his eyes bright and focused as he listened and supplemented my reading with his own pronunciations...the way he laughed with pure delight when we got to a funny part, and then put his arm around my neck to hug me. Wow...that's the stuff, you know? My heart resonated with his at that moment, and everything in the universe seemed to be exactly as it should be. It only lasted for the briefest moment, but...it was real peace. I recognized it for what it was.
That's enough to convince me that I really have made the choice to go through life leaning more towards hope than desperation...not because I've been "good" and earned anything, but because that's who I am, for whatever reason. I will always and forever grieve the boy that S. could have and SHOULD have been. I will always be sad that autism has lowered its shadow over our lives. Many days, I know I'll still want to give up and get fitted for that straight jacket I've been eyeing for a few years now. (If you're reading this and I'm sitting in a corner somewhere talking to myself and drooling, I'd like the green one. Thanks.)
Call it karma, or good will, or being a person with integrity - it doesn't matter. I have to live my life, living with what I've been dealt, doing the best I can. Some days I won't do well. Some days will be horrible and nasty and heart wrenching. But I'm going to stop looking up, waiting for the shoe to fall, or the sky to fall, or one of those big iron safes from Looney Tunes to fall. I'm just going to live in the moment, and meet things as they come. I need my energy for other things. Like playing with my sons while they're still young enough to care...or taking that English class next semester.
Or shoe shopping. :-)
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