Silent Night

 An unquiet night in my head.

So, while I am grieving the loss of my emotional support animal, something else has been unravelling in the background. I'm coming to terms with the fact that the bird had to go one way or another because....

As previously mentioned, we were put on notice about 2 months ago about elder's elevated liver enzymes. Consequent bloodwork and an ultrasound of his liver conclude that he has nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, caused by weight gain.

We didn't notice anything amiss at first.  Elder's anxiety was through the roof in May, so we added sertraline to his medications. At that time, he was 198, the best weight he's been in a couple of years.

At the time of his GI visit 6 weeks ago, he was 232.

I'm guessing from the looks of it he's about 250 now. We don't know, because now the scale doesn't seem to be working. 

His indolence has worsened; he is sneaking food, the worse shape he's in, the worse shape he is getting into. He is digging a hole I'm afraid we will never get him out of. 

Context:  he has nothing. School is done. His work has dried up. He literally has nothing to do BUT eat while dad, his brother and I are all engaged in our various employments. Dad and I do not have the bandwidth to police his every move, and he is knowingly exploiting that. he is literally employing all of his wits to feed his addiction.

Which is precisely what it is. 

And no amount of handwringing in the world is going to fix this. 

Another crisis. Another bend in our autism road. Another battle we find ourselves ill-equipped to fight without reinforcements.

I'm sitting here in the middle of the night shaking. Because I know whatever I'm doing is accelerating the problem because I do not know what I'm doing. 

And elder in his inimitable fashion seems to have dug his heels in self destructing.

This fraught battle over food as addiction has been simmering in the background his entire life as we have fought other enemies, demons, bullies, insanity, injustice, you name it.  Now I need to look in the mirror.

And accept that I can't fight this one alone.

And find someone--or a few someones--who can help.

It's simple enough to say some beasts should not be fed; but somehow, those beasts inadvertently get fed, whether we want them to be or not. And sometimes we inadvertently feed them, thinking we are doing what's best when in fact we're adding to the damage.

This isn't about me. 

This isn't about me. 

The battle is joined. 

All the Things

 I made the mistake of looking at email at 3 am and found someone's hair on fire. I managed that, now I'm awake. 

Taking the long view on a lot of things. Had a good walk in the woods and heard a merlin as I went. Was close enough to hear wingbeats as I came upon a small flock of sparrows. A horse lifted its head briefly to check me out as I passed. I jumped over a small stream without falling in or breaking anything. 

I'm grateful for many things, my family, that I have a job, that my family is staying safe (not necessarily sane, but we were never that). Prioritizing the people and relationships most meaningful to us. (and thankful, really thankful, that I had Nugget and that we all enjoyed him as much as we did).

The days get longer from here on out. It's easy to get wrapped up in stuff that doesn't matter. Letting all that fall away, and wishing/hoping/praying for better days ahead. 

Oh, How It HIts You....

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mZ3XwLy2UI

I can't get this song out of my head, but that's okay. It's where my heart is. 

Nugget is very present with me, even though he's gone. As I was going out my business, my head in the pantry, a tableau popped into my head;  I'm standing in the same place, and Nugget, fairly early on in his tenure, was on my shoulder, and he chirruped.

I turned my head, and there he was on my shoulder, stretched tall, peering meaningfully up at elder's container of cashews.

That was the first time I heard him utter anything other than cooee or cockatiel 'screm' (not that he did it that often, although the morning he left was the most I ever heard that from him).

Following this was another;  me picking Nugget up from the screened in porch floor of the family that found him, Nugget settling on my shoulder with a quiet chup and closing his eyes. 

The day I learned Nugget knew gratitude.

As much as I miss my little feathered dinosaur, I can touch these memories in my head without wincing, and I am grateful. Because they are good memories, and he made a lot of good ones in the scant two years he was with us. 

There were bird tracks in the snow the other morning, at both doors of my house.  At the back door was a riot of bird activity; many confused steps of a variety of passerines jockeying for whatever they could find to eat.

But at the front door, a lone pair of feet hopped across our landing and along the threshold. 

Not mine. But.....

Owls

 One thing I love about this time of year is hearing the call of the Northern Great Horned Owl.

It doesn't happen often, but when I am awake in the middle of the night, I can sometimes hear two of them calling to one another. This morning, very very early, they did not disappoint.

At first I thought I was imagining it--wishful thinking, I wanted to hear them, so I heard them. I listened more carefully, weeding out the ambient noise, and sure enough, the owls were exactly what I heard.

I lay there listening--they flew in closer, calling to one another. I could swear one was in the yew tree right outside my window. 

And no matter what I am feeling in my heart at the time, the call of the owl brings peace.

I fell back asleep listening to the owls.

And smiling. 

Clearing out

I am trying to be okay. 

Lately, it's a lot of work. 

I keep wanting to go upstairs and check on the bird (I can't even call him his name, now he's the bird), and I keep remembering he's not there. On Saturday, I cleaned his cage and stowed it down the basement. And began the job of cleaning out the basement. 

Why?  Because I can and because it's been bothering me for years. I did the same to the attic a few years ago for the same reason. I bagged 7 contractors bags and took them to Green Drop. I have six more bags started. I'm thinking I will fill those this week, plus some boxes, not to mention recycling and trash. 

If we all died tomorrow, all this stuff would go into a dumpster, anyway. 

I wonder what I could have done differently to keep the bird here. I wonder if he was sick, since he was acting strangely before he flew off.  Or, was he just sick of my boys trying to make him scold?  Or was he tired of the four of us being around constantly?

I think about when we got him back in May, and I wonder if I deserved to get him back at all.

I wonder if I should own another bird. Clearly, I don't know what I'm doing. 

And then there's the matter of younger and a dog--will I mess that up, too?

So tired.

It's been a week

 Fuck fuck fuckity fuck doesn't even begin to cover it. 

My bird is gone. I am trying to make my peace with that. Actually it all begins and ends there. He was truly my emotional support bird, and I am feeling his loss keenly. There is a Nugget-sized hole in my heart.  I can't even begin to enumerate all the ways he made my life better. I loved him, and he loved me. He was mine in a way nothing else has ever been. And now he's gone. 

So, the magnitude of loss is fairly great, whether I want to admit it or not. 

Struggling with all the other things. Went to the hospital to get an ultrasound on elder's gall bladder, liver and pancreas yesterday. That was my day off. We get to find out what they find tomorrow. Can't wait. 

Younger missed a session because I was out picking up elder and the technology couldn't be figured out in my absence. I yell and scream at elder that there's way too much going on, dad and I are doing the best we can, but both he and younger are going to need to step up. We can't carry everyone anymore. We are tired. And getting older.

And I'm feeling it.

I've been doing PT because that's my spa time, or the closest I'm going to get. Months of running my worklife from my dining room table is taking its toll.

I need a day where I can make a blanket fort, crawl in and stay there. 

I may decide to never come out. 

Closure

 So, I need to write down about the last two hours with Nugget.  I need to make sense of this in my own head, or at least sense I can live with. 

He was anxious, squawking, wings low and spread and quivering, crest down, the way he is when he suddenly realizes I'm not around.  "Oh, little thing," I would call.  The squawks would change to his "Cooee?" He usually takes off to hang out on the mirror, but this time he stayed on my shoulder, quiet.

This part is crucial. I forgot he was there. He weighs next to nothing, but he often lets me know by messing with my hair or clothes that he's there.

He didn't this time.

I'm straightening up the kitchen, loading the dishwasher, talking to myself, putting the coffee grounds and compostables together.  Putting things away.  I forgot he was on my shoulder. I think he's on the mirror, like he always is when he is hanging out. 

Except, I go to the compost barrel outside, and I am halfway between the house and the barrel, when he squawks and flies off.

A hundred thoughts fly through my head. But I can't ignore the one that tells me that this might be the last time I see him. I drop the bag in the driveway and run. He alights 40 feet up in the tree across the street. I scream his name. The neighbors come out. I point.  My elderly neighbor runs in and gets me a coat.  I stand underneath the tree calling to him. He calls back.  The wind blows, he struggles to stay on the branch. I keep hoping he'll let go and float down but I know he won't. 

He flies off into the backyards.  I run inside, change my shoes, put on a heavy jacket and race out again, this time with my elder son in tow.  We are walking through backyards, calling him. We hear him but can't see him. Then I look up, way up, about 40 feet up, and there he is. 

I tell elder to get the cage. The neighbors in that house come out and keep us company. I yell until I'm hoarse. Elder cries "I feel so helpless!"  I second that emotion. I stare up in wonder as I realize that little sucker is PREENING. As he often does in my lap when he is feeling safe. High, high up I see the shadow of an accipiter. Too big for a sharpshinned, likely a harrier. He looks, and flies on. I let out my breath and realize that this is likely his end. 

Robins fly in and roost around him. I wonder what kind of interaction there will be.  They fly off in short order. A little later a blue jay comes in to check him out. I half hope he swoops in and knocks Nugget out of the tree.

Oddly enough, he flies off,too.

It's just Nugget up there now. I see him catnap briefly a couple times over the course of those two hours.

I begin to think maybe he will work his way down. He has sidled down the tree a few feet.  He knows how to climb. But does he want to?

And squawking all the way, he takes off in a straight shot over the house. I run. Thinking that he'd maybe alight in one of the trees closer to our house.

But he keeps going. Carried by the wind and his own volition. 

And he's gone. 

And I don't hear him anymore.

Stages of Grief

 I keep hearing his conversational chips and chups.

I was often asked if he could do tricks. I'm sure he could have been taught, but that wasn't why he was mine. 

He was mine because we showed up in each other's lives at just the right time. He helped me weather a particularly bad storm less than a month into his time with us. And in return, he became one of the family.

He was my bird, but he also belonged to us, because as I always say, we are a unit. 

And we as a unit are feeling his loss.

I hung up just now from the SPCA, hoping that someone surrendered him. They saw my report, but so far, nothing. 

His cage sits in our backyard.  I could bring it in and stow it downstairs; I could turn this off in my head. I could pretend he was never here. 

But...he left his mark, and I feel his absence.  He is not the greatest magnitude of loss I've suffered in my life--he was a bird, a pet, after all. Not a human being. Not even a fur baby.  He weighed all of 90 g. Tiny thing, little bird, I called him.

I see him, hanging out under the table cloth, his own blanket fort. He carefully climbs down to the floor.  Explores, pecks around. I remind the boys to mind their step. Nugget chups his own reminder from under the table.

I feel eyes on me, and there he is, standing next to the chair, tiny little thing standing as tall as he can, looking up at me. I reach down, pick him up. He alights on my shoulder for a bit, then sidles down to my lap.  He preens, safe from all predators.

And then he tucks his beak into the down behind his wings. And sleeps. 

Hopeful Happy Ending

 It's a little weird how yesterday worked out.  

Our whole day hinged on one event.  And it's almost like the universe knew it as going to happen. 

First is the matter of breakfast. I seldom eat it. I have coffee, but depending on the day, I either have a nut bar or opt to intermittent fast.  Yesterday, I downed a whole leftover container of oricchiette and broccoli rabe that hubby made for dinner the night before. It was a salty, peppery wonder of awesome and I enjoyed it throroughly. And I marveled that I wouldn't have to eat again until dinner time. 

And, as it turned out, I wouldn't. At about noon, I was setting about the business of straightening up. Nugget was squawking to beat the band. I had gone up to get him, and he quieted down, as he always did, when he settled on my shoulder.

When he's settled, I often forget he's there. 

That happened in May when he escaped the first time.

And it happened again shortly before noon yesterday. 

I'm sitting at the computer finishing the business of sending alerts to every outlet I can think of about him.  I'll head out shortly and log another few miles on foot to see if I can find him. 

I need to try. But it's almost winter. He's a tropical bird. I hope he's warm. And I hope he's safe.

Thinking anything else will ensure that I won't function. 

Gone bird

 Nugget is gone.

Again.

And I'm afraid for good.

We were able to track him across the street and high up in a tree, first in front of Miss Gwen's house, then in the top of a tree in the back yard a couple doors down. We called to him, set up his cage in the backyard, Hubby said he could hear elder's anguished calling for Nugget from inside our house, which is no small feat and a testament to elder's lung power.

I watched an accipiter pass high over head.  His shadow paused over the tree and he moved on.

And he passed over again about 15 minutes later.

Nugget called back down, fluttered his wings, tried to edge down the tree, and after two hours, took off, east/southeast.  I bolted after him, foolishly thinking I could keep up.  But that was the last I saw of him. 

I thought I heard him as I endlessly walked the neighborhood, working in a spiral as all bird experts say you should. 

But here's the thing. Temperature is going to be below freezing tonight. Hiding will be harder. 

I'm afraid I won't see him again. 

He has brought me so much joy in the last two years. 

My sadness right now is at least as deep as that.

Better Day

 Still wandering through the valley of darkness, but it isn't as dark as it was yesterday. My trusty security bird is here by my keyboard as I navigate day 3 of this wanging great headache I've had since Monday (ibuprofen is barely making a dent). I've been trying to be okay for a long time, and lately I feel like I am hanging on by my fingernails (which have never been that strong, anyway). Found a preserve adjacent to where younger and I get PT and wandered through there while he had his session. It felt good to be out walking in the woods, but the deer stands told me it would be best if I wrapped up my walk before dusk.

If I can get the better of this headache, I am going to get this dining room in order. Tons of papers, tons of stuff to review, not enough hours in the day for everything that needs to get done,

Honestly I'd rather throw everything out. 

G wants to poke the bird.

The bird is not having it. 

So I went out for a walk to try to shake this headache. The sun is out, but there's a brisk wind blowing. I tried as much as possible to stay in the sun, since sunlight is a precious commodity these days. I struck out southeast, a route I usually don't take, and headed down the main road.  Ordinarily I don't like walking along it, but sunlight was a good enough reason to stick to it.

It was the uneventful walk until I headed back, striking northeast on a road that runs oblique to the other road.  Not preferred because no sidewalk and busy, but COVD reduces traffic and there's a generous shoulder. I look up in time to see an immature redtail hawk swoop in from across the road and alight on top of the wires almost directly over my head.  

And this one time I don't have my phone to get a picture. 

"Hello pretty boi," I call, and he looks directly at me. I mean, stares at me like "Who do you think you are, hooman, daring to address my awesomeness?"  And he brushed his beak against the wire once, then took off ahead of me, alighting this time on a pole.  He looked down at me as I passed under him again, and he took off ahead of me again, alighting on a pole a little farther down the road. 

This continued for about a quarter mile, until he realized that daylight was fading and it was time to eat.  He took off into the neighborhood beyond, and that was the last I saw of him.

I finished my walk smiling. He walked me home. 

December Thoughts

 I was reading back though my blog last night, and amazed at how little has changed.

Sure, the kids are older; I was hoping that I would see an arc of change. COVD has altered the arc to such a point that it seems more like we are back where we started, except now time is running out, doors are closing, my elder is losing ground daily, and I can't seem to put a stop to it. 

All I can think is that I am tired, I am sad, and feel like I am staring into the abyss.  Again. 

I started PT hoping to stop some of the ravages of time, and it seems to have hastened them instead.

So add broken to the list.

Sadness is overwhelming today. I will take my coffee outside and hope that fixes my head.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

 The thought I had as I dropped elder off for his weekly (socially distanced) bingo outing was "Thank God things aren't worse."

"That's a weird thing to be thankful for," was the thought that chased the former as I turned out onto 611.

So I sat with that while I drove. This....was not the life I imagined for myself when I was young. I imagined a family, I imagined staying home and being a full time mom, but there's no way I could have planned for the way it all played out. 

Autism looms large here, but it's not the only thing. Mental health and all the hard wiring hubby and I came with and discovered in middle age factors in here. How our hard wiring replicated in our kids factors here too. 

Not that we have any control over any of the above, but when you throw in the wild card of OTHER PEOPLE, you can be well and truly screwed if you aren't lucky enough to find yours in the course of life events.

As a child, I was always looking outward beyond our block, beyond our neighborhood. My sister laid claim to all the girls around our ages, and the fact that we were 21 months apart, and she was arguably more normal than me meant that there was no room for me in any of these relationships.

So as soon as I was allowed across the street, I crossed it. Walked around blocks and blocks in our neighborhood. If I wasn't hanging out on the front steps with the old people up the street, I was wandering looking for someone who might want to be my friend. 

I looked for a long time. I clung to people who were kind to me as if my life depended on it.(in retrospect, I feel sorry for them) I put up with a lot of abuse because I was made to feel I deserved whatever I got. 

Finally, it occurred to me I'd rather be alone than be miserable in the company of people that didn't want me around, anyway. 

I figured that out, and then suddenly, I started seeing my people. Some of those people stuck around for a reason or a season; I am blessed to have a number of people who have stuck around despite autism, despite mental health struggles, despite waxing and waning fortunes.

Coming into the autism life, I didn't know what life would hold for either son. Make no mistake: we are struggling in this time of COVD--elder lost a lot the last 8 months.  We're hoping to get his health back.  Younger would be just as happy if he never had to people again. We didn't expect either kid to get as far as either of them have come. And we don't stop here. We keep going. 

I am thankful for all the ground we've covered. And all the people who helped us cover it. 

Raising a glass to the next 1000 miles. Hoping for brighter days. 

Take a Giant Step

 It's been a week. I'm so grateful for my peeps.

For the longest time I had one friend outside hubby who I confided literally everything in. I sensed her pulling away because one crucial matter over which I had been struggling a long time was one that she could simply not relate to. 

I guess I have been in a years-long process figuring out the solve for this while life itself has been going along and providing solutions at the ready for the moment I came to this week.  Seeing as I can be torturously slow on the uptake and that penny can take FOREVER to drop, it was kind of amazing that my solve came during younger's goal update last night.

He and I have more in common than I think at first blush. I always think of him as his dad's kid, from looks to general demeanor. I've discovered that he has a deep love for the arcane and can wax poetic for hours at a time about some random fact he stumbled upon by way of a video or something he heard over NPR (which is on all day, every day, except for those days I can no longer stand the news and switch off to the Original Cast Recording of Hamilton. But anyway.)

One of his goals was to find more common ground in casual conversation (wish I had this as a teenager), and right then and there I had my solve for my problem--the WHO I needed to have a conversation with. 

A year ago about this time we headed to NYC to meet up with virtual strangers to spend a weekend. The son is a good friend to both my boys, and his mom was a wild card.  I knew her from when my boys began league bowling almost a decade ago and wasn't sure if she remembered me, since I didn't think she liked me. 

Anyway. We got on like a house on fire. We took to texting and calling, not regularly, but certainly more often than I text or call anyone else.  She became family because she got our lives, and we were never any less because of who we were.

So, she was the person I called last night. 

It was the right call. 

She has a unique perspective that my other near and dears don't have.  But I am understanding now that my near and dears all dovetail nicely in my life, the way I must in theirs.

Not showing these cards. The only important thing to note is that my boys had visceral negative reactions, and M pointed out that They Know. 

At one point yesterday, I had burst into tears, cried it out, recovered, and went in to talk to elder, who was doing his school work. He looked up and asked me what was wrong. This is the kid who shares my wiring and always knows when I am struggling to keep it together. Well, that did it. There I was, crying on his shoulder for a hot minute until he became impatient and pulled away. I asked him if he thought I was overreacting.

"Yes and no."

"Explain"

"Well, yes because I'm fine, and you worry too much. And no because," he paused, shrugged and shook his head. "You are sensitive, and that's okay."  Then he went back to his books. 

I went back to work, but not before texting M and asking her for an audience. 

This all ties into my previous post. There's so much to unpack, but in the end. I've decided to leave it packed and in the rear view mirror. My boys have spoken their piece and counted to three. My life is in the here and now. 

And I have work to do. 

All Over But the Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth

 Oh my, this has no shortage of applications today, no?  Where does one start?

We'll whistle past the graveyard of past being prologue. Stuff I feared four years ago is coming to fruition, but aren't our worst fears the things that have already happened?

I'm in the process of reorganizing the inside of my head. It's been a lifelong process, but unlearning what you have been taught often is. I keep weighing reality as I know it against reality as I perceive it. This is the work of living with depression, constantly working against one's perceptions. No matter how astute they might be, they are also mightily subjective.

Life goes on, whether or not you choose to participate. People live and die, and all this is in the background. Until it becomes present, urgent, needs to be fixed right now. 

Except:  after a certain point, one needs to accept that not everything can be repaired. And just because you can, does it mean you should?

Thinking about a former friend and his wife. Every time hubby and I got together with them, we had to win over the wife. Literally. Every freaking time. It was like rolling that boulder up the mountain. If she allowed us to get to the end of the evening, she was relaxed, and hubby and I would look at one another and say "Oh, good.  Next time should be better."

Except next time, we were back to square one. And some days she decided we didn't get a whole evening. Or if we did, she'd be squirreled away in a corner where she didn't have to deal with us. 

This is analogous to the stuff I am working through. All the phone calls where I was put on the defensive, because a certain someone "needed to address" whatever the fuck was on her mind at the moment, and all the time I was expected to apologize for hurting her feelings, breaking some unwritten rule or some other vague wrongdoing.

If I were keeping score, same person hurt me, intentionally, time and time again over decades. I let the transgressions pass, because I was expected to, for the sake of everyone's peace and comfort, regardless of what it cost me. 

And good Lord, if I looked askance at anyone, I would be summarily banished until I came cowering, quivering and apologetic to the door. If I questioned, I was admonished for questioning. Or, there would be the blaming of the victim. I was so often asked "So what did YOU do?" As if I deserved whatever abuse came my way. 

It took telling my therapist all this to make me see, through someone else's eyes, that this is bullshit. 

This last time, I apologized one last time, and was still in the wrong.

So? I'm done. 

I still have my moments of grieving, but at least I know peace now. 

Utility Grass and Other Random Thoughts

 Utility grass is stuck in my head as a dream remnant. Grass that is useful.  I was thinking this as a distraction from something else in the dream.

Which brings me to the current moment. Eight months into this lockdown, I am tired. I have watched time and solitude erode all the progress my elder has made, and thanks to that erosion (among other things), we are off to a GI doctor because of elevated enzyme levels. Second time in four years we are in a crisis owing to eating. 

He's not even insanely heavy. He's wired to rebel when his weight moves beyond a prescribed threshold. We're there now. Trying to convince him to do better for himself is impossible; after all, he doesn't feel sick, so what's the problem?

The problem, my dear, is that you can drive yourself to a way early grave. And you might not get any warning. 

I talk to a wall. 

I know where my energies need to go right now. And I need to make that happen, no matter how difficult for me this is. 

But?  I am tired. This is my third decade into this and it is not getting easier. 

I am running out of time. 

I need to help him figure this out. 

Breadcrumbs and Microaggressions

 My bandwidth isn't what it used to be. 

I've circled the wagons and hunker down with my core of four (of which I am one). I've determined who loves me and who doesn't.  And I proceed accordingly. 

I've spent a majority of my life pleading for what really should have been de facto mine all along. It's taken me decades to realize that the only place I ever really came up short was with the very people who should have withheld judgment but thought withholding love was a better plan for me. 

These same people never lose an opportunity to think badly of me.  

Meanwhile, me and mine were expected to take whatever got shoveled our way and be happy with that.

I've learned that I am worthy of love. So are my boys. And that people love us and support us.

So that's where our energies go now. 

Whatever others think of us is none of our business.

My son, the deconstructionist

My younger guy is a deconstructionist.

As a grad student, I hated deconstruction. I didn't get it. Every time I thought I got it, it eluded me. 

I got a B for the literary theory class in grad school. Deconstructionism is largely to blame. 

My bigger problem, I realize now, is that I thought too much about it.    Because when I was my son's age--younger-I literally pulled apart sentences, looking at every possible definition, and realized early that sentences could actually mean their exact opposite meaning. 

He asks me repeatedly what things mean. Lots of things. And he remembers my responses. And compares them.

This is the kid they tell me is slow. Takes more time to process.  But he asks questions that no one else thinks to ask. 

The other night he quoted Mussolini at the dinner table. My husband, an Italian by birth, knew the quote, but couldn't imagine how his offspring knew it. 

(He reads. He researches. His wikipedia adventures include editing entries. Since Age 12.)

I'm trying to find comfort in this. I'm trying to make peace with a lot of missing and misunderstood pieces. This is who he is. 

I am so proud of who he is. 

But I wish the fates had better things in store for him. He deserves better.

I used to worry

I've spent my time in COVD isolation trying to make peace with all my missing pieces.

I've spent a lot of time trying to mend my broken heart.

I've spent a lot of energy trying to make myself whole.

I've mourned my dead, figurative and literal.

I'm working on forgiving myself all my shortcomings.

I cry tears lately over my younger son. Lots of reasons. Mostly because his brother is the bigger, louder, more obvious presence. Energy spent there is energy I didn't spend on younger.

Forever, I thought he didn't need me. He did, but in ways it wasn't obvious. I can list in my head all the times I came up short for him. I found myself in tears so many times this past week, driving past places where I had a visual in my head where my failures of him took place.

This week we cooked together. We made muffins together a little while ago.  While I was on a teleconference, he came over and left this for me.

 

And I can't stop crying, because this is what grace looks like. He gave me a piece of what was his, because he loves me, and because that's what he does.

And then I think that in all the wrongs I've done, I have done something indisputably right.

This Autistic Life

I think it's safe to say, in retrospect, I was more autistic than both my kids at their respective ages.

During my therapy session last week, I told my doctor this. He seemed somewhat surprised. He, like many people in my life, don't see autistic me. They see ME.  I'm quirky, smart, funny, and quick with a comeback.

I wasn't always this way.

In fact, the me that exists now is a fairly recent creation, or re-creation, of the self that I always aspired to be.

I would have gotten on my own nerves, the child, teenager, young adult, middle-aged mom I used to be.

I'm not sure how my own mother didn't kill me in my sleep. Oh, right. I didn't sleep.

Neither did she.  I didn't let her. I thought my insomnia would kill me, so I made sure she stayed awake, too. I didn't want to die alone.

My memories take two tracks, I told my doctor. I remember things as I experienced them; viscerally, sensorily, if that's a word--sights, smells, touch, sound, taste--but I also see them now as an adult with language to wrap around those memories, and make sense of all the emotions I felt.

I spent my whole life watching other people, wondering why some people got away with murder, socially, for some of the crap they pulled, whether they were chronic liars, or chronically late, or (to be bold here) overtly plagiarized my work, while I seemed to run afoul of everyone for the slightest infraction--usually not meant in any offending way. I remember one former friend telling me all the stuff I did wrong after the fact, and then saying we couldn't be friends any more.

I wondered at the time why that person didn't stop and correct me at the first infraction. I hadn't realized I was doing anything wrong.

I had another call me on the fact that I didn't send her a sympathy card. At the time I was a young(er) mom who didn't sleep, had a very colicky baby and was trying to balance work, baby and life and not doing any of it well.

Instead of apologizing, like I should have done, I threw the card out. I'm sorry I did that. But that was 20 years ago.

But that's okay; I had internet friends. I fell in with a bunch and some wanted to write. I made the mistake of sending my novel off to them.  One of them published parts of it (like, whole passages of dialogue), plus title under her name. And I was gaslighted and banished from the group.

She and another writer used mine to pad their own writing. I saw scenes I wrote show up in both of their books. In a way, it was kind of flattering.

But I stopped the fiction writing at that point. I had one story to tell, and that was it. In a larger sense, they did me a favor, because I could never have published that story in a million years. The whole point to me writing it was therapy, because by that time, I needed it and wasn't getting it.

So I stuck to scientific and medical writing, because I could and because it paid a lot better, and because by that time, I had two kids with diagnoses and couldn't really afford to fuck around.

In the meantime, there were real life challenges. I deleted Sharon's taunting emails without reading them because I had people who were brave enough to be assholes to my face, and I needed to spend my energy on defending my kids from them.

At some point, I stopped caring about what other people thought of me. I hated the fact that people were kind and praiseful to me one on one but gave me their backs when they were in a group. I hated that they spoke well of my kids to my face, but their kids excluded mine.

Sometimes, I imagine myself in warpaint doing a haka on my kids' behalf.

I wish things were better for them. On the other hand, neither of them are afraid of being themselves, or of standing apart.  They know how. Because they learned from the best.

It's 5 o'clock in Nova Scotia

So I have a beer open and am enjoying it. :)

SO the boys and I were on a 3.5 mile geocaching adventure this pm.  Wow, it was a workout and a half. Even though the state is in shut down mode, the trails elder takes us to are very sparsely traveled and scenic.  Including a few pics from today's adventures. He found a presidential dollar in one of the caches and made some swaps. He's happy.

And so am I. Younger is hard at work, and we live to fight another day.

Scenes from Isolation

We're hanging in there. Getting out and hiking whenever we can, pretty much every day out geocaching and going a few miles. Also doing a lot of cooking and baking.

Online schooling also begins today. We'll see how it all goes.

Semi Feral

I'm finding this time of self isolation suits me just fine.

I'm not thrilled. I don't love it. COVD-19 is pretty fucking scary.  But we're already self-isolating, so as a collective, I think we are doing a collective exhale.

I'm listening to the boys talk between themselves, and I think this unexpected hiatus from having to figure out what is and what isn't socially appropriate, while not exactly convenient, has some unexpected silver linings.

Like not having to people.  Or keeping the peopling to a minimum.  We've been hiking in the woods and geocaching the last week or so, but now, with the new stay at home orders, we're limited.  I send them on their own around the neighborhood for walks (that "There's the mom and her retards" comment stinging all these years later) (No, I will not get over it. You don't call my kids or ANY kids retards. Ever.) I keep my sorties to the bookends of light each day to minimize my own contact with the world.

This unexpected hiatus in the everyday has given me a little time and space to reflect on my own autism journey. It wasn't all that long ago that my own gullibility led to someone claiming my work as her own, and then being gaslighted for it.  Led to decades of psychological abuse, only to have my sanity called into question. Goodbye. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

My younger guy's first job interview kind of brought me here unexpectedly. It didn't go great, but in this time of scary health crises, I'd rather him not being a conduit of this virus, either coming or going. But that aside, I had observed to hubby that the person who interviewed G was, and I quote, "a social clod."

So elder, who was on the other side of the house but has ears like a bat, materialized in the kitchen. "Mom, what do you mean social clod?  What does that mean?"

After dad and I busted his shoes for eavesdropping, we asked him what we possibly could have meant.  He shrugged, "I dunno, socially awkward, doesn't know what to say?  Makes social mistakes?"  We agreed that these things qualify, and he went back to whatever it was he was doing in another part of the house.  And I observed to hubby, "He's trying to figure out what we already know."  And in saying that, I realized that I came about all my knowledge about the social contracts in pretty much the same way--asking questions.

Except....I had a shit ton of relationships end because I violated some unspoken social rule and whatever friend had dumped me didn't have the time, patience or interest in our relationship to tell me what it was I did wrong. Or how I could have fixed it. So a lot of my knowledge came by making mistakes. Lots of them. Over decades.  The trail of carcasses stretches for miles over multiple jurisdictions.

Work, too. The same applies to work relationships and situations I had come across over my decades working (now in my 5th and counting, having been working in some way or other since age 11). I had to screw up an awful lot to learn all the things I know now.   I could probably fill a book. And maybe I should.

So even though I worry about these two and wonder if they will be okay and eventually find their way, I remind myself of everything that I needed to learn on my own, and am comforted in the fact that I am still here to guide them and coach them. And while I know they will both need to make their own mistakes and learn their own lessons, I also know that they won't be doing it alone.

They have us. And they have each other.

And that is a beautiful thing.

Outside, Looking in

This describes my whole life.

I've spent most of my life being neither this nor that.  I find it a bit of mixed blessing in that sometimes, it would be nice to be included, but most of the time, I'm just as happy not to be.

I didn't always find it thus. I've spent untold quantities of mental, physical and emotional energy raging at the machinery of social and professional circles (often with quiet demureness at the outside of the latter, but mental and emotional energy expended, nevertheless).

If I can get outside of my ego, though, it's been enormously to my advantage to be outside, gauging loyalties, strategizing my own (later, my boys') place(s) in the world. I see both boys playing the same game, studying the rules, then figuring out how to beat the world at its own game. It's hard wired into who we are.

Having the emotional struggles is something I can dispense with altogether. It's not convenient.  It gets in the way of clear thinking. And when that happens, I do exactly what I did in the fourth grade.  Stationed near the door, I would sometimes throw a pencil out of the classroom, steal out of my desk ostensibly to retrieve it, then perambulate around the school. It was a small school, a single hallway stretching down two levels of classrooms. But I would circuit up one set of steps, wander down the upstairs hallway, sometimes peering into the faculty lounge, meander down the front fire tower, then back up past the learning center and younger kids' classrooms, then slip back to my own classroom and my own desk.

I was only caught once all school year.

The school is closed now, as is the parish. I hear about my younger guy sometimes circuiting his much bigger school, comfortable in his own skin (and hair).  I see my older guy, recently disappointed in his own pursuits, trying to figure out his own way forward.

They have me to lean on. And I have them.

And together, we are inside. Looking out.

New Horizons

The best part of getting older is the realization that nothing is forever.

I used to worry a lot more about things that don't matter much in the grand scheme.  And I still tend to get anxious about small things. But distractability works heavily in my favor for the most part, since there is always stuff that needs to get done, phone calls that need to get made, and general stuff that comes from living the life on the edge of the spectrum.

Lately people tell me more than they think they are telling me--it's not the how much, but the what.  For example, elder's teacher all but came out and told me he's not hireable. He's certainly employable, but that whole autistic thing is going to get in the hiring way.

I know that. I knew that. I think back to the young lady I wanted to hire 22 years ago and how my boss at the time negated my hire.  The young lady who came in her place was a different kind of lovely (I called her Little Flower, because she was), but the other one, who was shy, had a limp, was certainly on the spectrum, haunts me because I wanted to give her a chance.

And likely my sons will find themselves in the same bind.

And here's the other thing;  I was not overwhelmed by the students chosen to rep at the open house yesterday. I wondered why Nic wasn't selected. Did he opt out?  He says so. I wonder if he talked himself out of wanting to partake. After all, is a young man on the spectrum what they want to represent them?  Well mannered or no, he's still not "normal" even though people hasten to assure me normal is not all that.

Normal gets you in the front door. I passed for normal my whole life, and I know that owning my own disability won't do me any favors because we're not living in that world.

Plus I'm old(er). That definitely doesn't help.

I need to devote my energies to helping my guys find their places in this world.  No one else is going to help.

Francesca

As I drove home from dropping elder off at one of his jobs, a half remembered dream from decades ago popped into my head and brought tears to my eyes.

In it was a little girl in a red velvet dress and her dad's big serious sad eyes. She was beautiful.

She was also deformed.

And when I awoke from that dream, I knew her name.

Francesca.

The child I lost.

Lifetimes ago, her dad and I lived on Long Island. He was a grad student, and I was working a dead-end job for the salary and the paltry benefits (but it didn't matter because eventually I was going to stay home and raise a family anyway--ha. I did eventually raise a family, but that's not how it played out. But I get ahead of this story.) One evening at dinner, I abruptly pushed away my plate.

He looked askance at me across the table. I said that the salad suddenly turned my stomach. Shrugged.  He asked if I could be pregnant. I laughed.  I was on the pill, I said.  We cleaned up dinner, and that was the end of that conversation.

Sometime later, weeks, sitting in my dead end chair at the dead end job, I doubled over in pain. Menstrual cramps times a hundred or so.  I didn't keep track of my periods in those days, as they were more or less regular and I didn't think much about anything healthwise, other than I could use to lose a few pounds (I laugh to think that now). I headed for the ladies, and hunkered down in a stall, waiting for something.

I waited. Daydreamed through the cramps. Listened to others come and go in the restroom. Eventually figured that I might be missed.  The pain eventually subsided. I casually glanced into the bowl.  Froze.  Stole another glance.  Then got down on my knees and peered into the bowl.

In it, was something pink and vaguely shrimp-like.  I stared, the reality of what I was seeing pummeling me. But I couldn't feel anything in that moment outside of shock--for the moment.

I'm not sure how long I knelt there. People coming and going, maybe remarking at the knees and heels out at the back of the stall.  I had a phone call to make, and looking back, I don't even think I had the wherewithal to find a quiet space to do it, this being before portable cell phones.

I don't remember the conversation, only sitting at the desk, the cubicle wall providing negligible privacy, and tucking all this away in a box in the back of my mind after.  As if she never existed.

The dream came later.

And the grieving came only after the birth of elder, when the magnitude of her loss really made itself clear. We'd already moved twice since then, but she came with us.

And after our third move, I heard elder laughing and chatting in the bright sunlight of the office on a winter's day.  He spoke, almost 100% of the time, in perfectly articulated yet completely scripted sentences.

But he was alone.  I was in another room. His brother was not yet born. And the conversation went on, audible, but not articulate to my ears a few rooms over.

Hey, N-, who are you talking to?

Raised voice:  My sister!  (and the quiet conversation continued)

It took me a couple beats to figure it out.

We have quite a few angels and household saints looking after us.  St. Francesca of Hauppauge is one of them.