The Truth will set you free (but not until it's done with you)

I've been reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace since June.

After a few false starts, losing one copy of the book (while talking elder off his ledge on the train), re-watching The End of the Tour a few times, I hit page 400 sometime yesterday.

In some ways, it is, for me, an easy read.  He writes and thinks like me. I laugh out loud with recognition at amusing turns of phrase, people I can actually SEE and HEAR (and, I know these people. I've lived with them.) When he's in full-bore expository pyrotechnics, I'm in awe. But the flashing and banging isn't what's getting to me. It's the quieter, more melodic passages that follow the ebb and flow of someone wrestling the demon depression that are playing hell with me. There is an equal, unsettling amount of recognition.  Isn't that what true art is supposed to do?  Move you and piss you off, sometimes at the same time?

Check.

This isn't  a leisure read so much as a post graduate independent study that also serves as therapy in the absence of having a licensed professional talk to me about what I'm feeling and why I'm feeling it.

Instead, it's like I'm wielding a box cutter, and I'm performing emergency amputations on those parts of my psyche that are damaging the functional parts that are left. Which would be fine if cutting away the gangrene solved the problem and brought relief outright. But, predictably, I'm still bleeding, and I still need to function, but at the same time, I desperately need to heal.

And this damn book bandages one moment and rips off another mask (and part of me) the next.

But I need to finish this work because I will never have peace if I don't.

I'm thinking of Dave and his dogs. I'm thinking of Shadow, the rescue that was not ours, but who I desperately wanted to be ours.  Maybe I need that dog more than G.  I love the bird, but he's not a dog (although he's trying hard to be).

I'm thinking about the fact that even though I am doing what I need to do and how I need to do it that I will still be judged and stuck in a slot I ceased to fit in a long time ago. And I'm crying about that, don't know why, and feel somewhat ridiculous about it. I need to be done with it, but the past is not done with me.

The title of this blog showed up on page 389.

I spent a long time on this page.

I need to keep going.

But I need to take a moment and grieve, too.

Only, I can't stay here with the grief. I need to leave it behind and keep going.

I wish it would stop following me.

Getting over it

So I've been struggling a great deal lately, over grudge-holding versus forgiveness versus healing versus moving on.

My healing process has been staggered and staged over decades.  Probably the big moment that forged the person I am happened on that infamous fifth grade trip to Baltimore almost a decade ago, described briefly here.

The backdrop:  Nic's aforementioned horrid year at the hands of a teacher who enjoyed torturing him under the guise of 'trying to help him'--the extent to which I was blissfully unaware of until I had a front row seat to the horror that was his life that year.

Additionally, this was the year I had caved to hubby to join the neighborhood association.  He/we naively thought this would help us integrate into the community--instead, people shunned us more (and encouraged their kids to harass us--documented here.  In the fullness of time, it was revealed to be a neighbor's teenage son and his friends. I called the family out a few weeks later, and to this day, the mom gives me her back whenever she sees me---as if I were the one who were in the wrong.)

This moment literally defined the rest of my life. But I digress.

Anyway, the trip.  Nic and I off on our own. The girl who sat next to him in the science museum cringing away from him (I leaned over, smiled sweetly, and said "Oh, honey, don't worry, he's not contagious." She looked mortified. Good.).  The boys who kept singing "Hi, Nic!"  And Nic wanting to run to them, because he was so sure they were his friends. I told him, no, they were not.  Nic telling me I am lying to him. Nic marching over to them and saying "My mom says you're not my friends."  Me trying to pull him away. Him pulling me to the ground in a full on meltdown, everyone looking on.

Thanks all. You created this bullshit.

I ripped that teacher up one side and down the other via email later.

She had the nerve to tell me she wished she had my younger one in her classroom. I had moved heaven and earth to make sure that would never happen.

But that moment, getting pulled to the ground by my frantic, melting down tween in front of an audience--that told me to never, ever expect help from any mortal outside of my trust. 

That also galvanized my determination to create a safe place for my boys. I had done it already, unconsciously, but this made my process very, very conscious. 

The truth is, I will never get over this. I have PTSD from hundreds of thousands of moments like this that started from the time I was 7. But this was my last PTSD-worthy moment, I think, having hit a lifetime cap. But I have plenty of them that reduce me to shaking and tears unexpectedly, in quiet moments while I am enjoying the woods, or making dinner, or riding the train. I wish it were as easy as "getting over it" or "moving on."  I am trying.

But it's hard.

I hope you get the help you need Part 2

I'm finally at a point where I can write this.

A couple of years ago, I had someone try to tell me how to raise my kids at a holiday function.

I thought it was hilarious. This person had no contact with my kids outside of a few interactions over the course of a dozen years, therefore, no context.  I could barely contain an eyeroll and said pretty much thanks, I've been living this 24/7/365 for years, I think I have a handle on it.

Except.....that person got butthurt about it, and through a series of freak accidents, I somehow ended up apologizing. Like I always do.   The whole thing turned into me being over sensitive, taking things the wrong way.....

Except....my boys were there, and are witnesses themselves that, yes, these things were said, yes, this was how they, too, interpreted events as I did.

Except...autism makes us unreliable witnesses.

Or....does it?

If three people variably impacted experience events and people the same way, doesn't that mean there's an agreement of the way events unfolded?  And there was an agreement, that yes, there was tone, yes, so and so said this, but because we are who we are, our experience is invalid?

Elder even rolled his eyes at me and said "MOM.  I've been telling you this for YEARS."

He's an authority on gaslighting. This was his entire fifth grade year, in a nutshell. How somehow HE was the bully when he was outnumbered by kids (led by adults) who insisted they were trying to "help" him, and he "misunderstood" them.

And I have some swamp land in Florida to sell you.

Going back to the first blog I wrote about this back in September, about the relative who told me that she hopes I get the help I need--I have a message for you.

How dare you?  Any reason I need help was caused by you--over years, decades of your fault finding. I tried my best and my hardest to make up for all my perceived deficits, only to have you start fights by saying what was on your mind, and put me in the position to apologize for whatever bullshit way I slighted you. You walked all over me because everyone else did, and because it was "okay."  Fuck you. It's not okay. It was NEVER okay.  But I let so much pass in the name of keeping peace.  YOURS.  Not mine. And I paid a stupidly high price for YOUR peace.  Namely, mine. And it literally drove me crazy.

I'm done supplicating.

You're dismissed.

Letter Man

So this happened last night.

My younger, a high school sophomore, earned his Varsity letter for marching band.  Elder earned his for bowling a year and half ago--and there's still a chance this guy could earn a second letter for bowling, as well. 

Hubby scoffs--letters weren't a thing in high school for him, and that wasn't his speed. Truth be told, it wasn't mine, either. As Elder would be quick to tell you, I was never national-anything.  He, meanwhile, ran nationals for cross country 6 years ago (but let's be clear--that wouldn't have happened if I didn't drive it).

But this is different. This is not mom driving a damn thing except making sure my kids get the same opportunities their peers get. I wish it were as easy as them "just signing up."

Back in the dark ages (5 years ago), when Elder was a freshman who made the bowling team, we had behaviors. We had willful. We had "there's no support for after school." Give credit where credit is due--I coached the coach on coaching elder. He made it through freshman year bowling. And then he did the next three years on his own. 

He earned that letter. 

My boys are close enough in age to be friends, and being friends, they are also competitive.  G entered marching band as a thing do do last year, and then was interested enough in getting his letter to make another go of it this year. 

And he's joined indoor percussion to give him a chance to learn other instruments--the thought being that he can graduate to mallets next year.

I'm not going to bet the farm on section leader. But I'd love to walk with him on senior recognition night.

Goals.

So big deal. Who cares about the letter?  The truth is that I do. Because a letter for either kid was not in either of their plans.

And yet--here we are. 

I can't wait to see what boundaries they break next. 

Fall in NYC

So we met one of elder's elevator friends and mom up in NYC this weekend.

It was one of those WTH gambits made spur of the moment about a month or so ago.  I picked up D and took him and the boys elevatoring, and he casually mentioned that he and his mom were going to NYC in November.

So we check schedules, and lo behold, G is done band and we can all go. 

And oddly, G, Mr. Homebody, Mr "Let me out here in MN so I can hitchhike home," was looking forward to this more than anyone. 

Anyhoo, D had an agenda, and, miraculously, we were able to convince our boys to go a long (plus add a couple things they both wanted to see), and everyone got to do what they wanted and had a good time. 

Not to say there weren't any meltdowns--Elder and D chorused on one together on 42nd street at around 5 pm--fortunately, we were close enough to the hotel where we could all drop in and decompress a bit before dinner. 

Otherwise it was awesome. Both boys came home happy. Elder considers D his friend, but D considers both boys his friend. No one was excluded. There were no third wheels. 

It was good. 

Yelling into the Void Redux

I can't complain; I had a decent breakfast courtesy the company, and that always puts me in a good mood.

I do need to get down to the business of writing my memoir/how to and all the dirt that lead me to this particular moment in time. I spent a lifetime beating and defying odds, but it hasn't been without associated costs. I am reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, and in him I see a kindred spirit I would love to sit down and have a cup of coffee, or glass of diet rite, or whatever he'd drink to share company (alcohol is out, and probably for the better). 

But depression killed him, and the world is a sadder place because he's not in it.

But reading him, really paying attention to what he has to say, reminds me that I, too, have things to say that should be out there in the universe, and I am not being a good steward of my talents by neglecting my responsibilities.

So ironic I say that now. I said that 13 years ago when it came to light someone plagiarized from me. I still remember her on our online forum appropriating my voice and turns of phrase and wondered what that meant until she cast me as a pretender and people believed her.

That anyone believes I am capable of pretending anything is probably the best trick she ever performed. Too bad it's in her rear view mirror.

But there it is in my windshield, like the unfinished business it is. Just like all the rest of the unresolved shit that I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't, so I defer it until another point and time where it's in my way, and then I have to choose whether to divert or roll on over it.

Clearly, I haven't rolled over it yet if it's not in my rearview mirror.

My story, if not written per se and immortalized in bits and bytes in various places in the internet, is written in the hearts and minds of people who knew me. REALLY knew me.

So I have to let the haters go, even if they are of kin to me. They were not kind. I forgive them their unkindness, but I need to let them go.

I'm having a hard time doing so. Because I've been programmed that family is everything, even though it's damn near killed me more times than I care to count.

I desperately want to heal, but the same wounds keep reopening in the same places, and I don't know how to make the bleeding stop.

Perpetual Change

Trying to wrap my head around it all....

Elder is struggling with college this semester, and impending adulthood.  Heels dug in, kicking and screaming will he be dragged to the threshold of his 20s. And likely beyond. Seriously.  He is resisting age harder than I am at the moment.

Younger is finally (finally!) on an even keel.  His placement agrees with him, and he is making inroads to becoming more active in his school activities and making a greater effort to seek out his people.

He also met Mandy Patinkin, one of his heroes, last week. So that has him in a good mood.

I'm struggling.  My therapist departed for greener pastures in July and I am doing a lot of heavy lifting in coming to terms with things (people) I can't change and changing my behavior to keep me from further scarring up my psyche.  My cone of shame is invisible.

I perseverate on how people blame me instead of letting it all go. I'm not done processing. It's taking a painfully long time, but I can't undo decades of programming overnight, as much as I'd like to.

I have my bird, who is equally happy to have me. But man, I would really love to have a dog right now. Another thing we are working on. I think it would do G a world of good. And I do think it would do all of us good.

I pray a lot. I try to spend as much time in the woods as I can (saw bluebirds yesterday, which totally made my day.)  But I am so tired.