Digging Little Deeper

 Still on the late 80s odyssey, because new stuff keeps coming to light that's relevant to what I'm dealing with in the present moment with elder and all the generational stronghold stuff.

My boss, the best ever from a few years ago, got me on a daily prayer/reflection email blast (and I'm not sure when they discontinued me, but I was fired lol); one of the recurring themes was 'the generational stronghold.'

Like deconstruction back in grad school, this kept tripping me up--I thought I got it until I really started thinking about it, then it would slip away and I'd be annoyed because I felt like this was something I needed to know and I Just.Wasn't. Getting. It.

The reflection on elder's current age and where I was at the time reminded me of a couple things.  Probably the big thing I all but forgot about was how upset FOO was when I started grad school. I literally didn't know what to do with that.  I was out on my own two years by that time, and I even said to my mom, "I don't see the problem, it's not like I'm asking you to pay for it."  And the subject changed, as it does when there isn't really an argument, just a feeling that needs to be given a voice and a hearing. 

That's literally all I remember--the general consternation.  I remember feeling confused and not understanding the WHY, why everyone took this so personally and had such a strong opinion about it, because it literally had ZERO to do with them and everything about what I wanted to do in the moment.

And I think it comes up now because my partner in crime makes much of my degrees, and how she didn't choose the way I did, and it's coming to bite her, and I don't get the why behind that, either. Education was just something I did. I wanted to study lit as an undergrad, but I was deterred from that in favor of a degree I'd "do" something with, only to go back and get a higher level degree in the thing, anyway. 

(That is likely the thing that pissed everyone off--that I went back and did what I wanted, anyway.)

So I compare my single-minded pursuit of a life style, which, by the way, never happened the way I planned it, with elder and suddenly his situation becomes crystal clear.  He lacks that driver.  I think that's what R has been trying to get me to see and I am just a little too dense to understand it. 

(Meanwhile, hubby just did what he always planned on doing, and you could say he took me along that ride with him. I never would have done grad school if not for him, and I know it's true.)

Just trying to make sense of the mosaic that is my life.  Oddly, it's all starting to fall into place....

The Remains of the Day

 Sometimes you're lucky just to make it to the end of the day.

I have a lot of thoughts, and I'm trying to figure out what I should say.  A lot of tears lately; sometimes it's random, sometimes it's brought on by elder's current difficulties (I legit broke down listening in to his teleconference with the transition coordinator--his voice is a foghorn, and I could hear him blowing smoke from two rooms and one flight up and away).  He knows all the right things to say, then he doesn't follow through.

"He's not you," hubby reminded me last night. "Neither kid is you."

He's talking about the fact that I was out on my own at 20. I met him, and then dragged him along into adulthood with me. 

It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. 

Elder is now the same age I was when I started grad school. If I'm honest, grad school was something to do while I waited for my then boyfriend to get his degree.  Don't get me wrong; I had my sights set on teaching college level. I loved grad school. And the whole academia thing seemed like the right road, because that was what he planned to do. We'd do it together. It would be fun. 

It didn't *quite* work out like that.

I had something to focus me during that time, and that's what kept the ball moving forward.

Elder lacks the same impetus.

Thus, the problem. 

And he's dragging his brother down; I just checked his grades, and he's in trouble in two of his classes.  Senior slide?  Or just watching big brother on his bullshit?  I had to do a little butt kicking to get him to look at his classwork and get back on track. 

He told me not to worry.

Meh.

Which reminds me, I have to check on something he promised to do. May as well make sure he gets that done while he's still up. It's not like he's doing anything important....

Chasing Stuff Away

 Having another one of those days, the sky is grey, and blue is getting the better of me. 

The only sure fire way I know of to chase that off is to do stuff I need to do. Fortunately, I have a list and motivation to not get to a place I can't get back out of. 

I'll start small. Then add stuff as I get motivated.

Looking at the whole of the list is overwhelming, so I am putting stuff on post-its so it's not as daunting.

(and why are all of my weather aps showing sun?  There is no freaking sun outside this window right now.  I haven't seen it all morning.)

Going to chip away at this list until I feel like I can function again.....

His Way (or, "Stay in Your Own Damn Lane, Mom")

 Lately I can't seem to hit a snag without going into a spiral. 

I realized as I was running kids to where they needed to go that I whiffed not once, but twice on two completely different things that needed to get done. The second was a good 48 hours since I missed that appointment. 

The other one was indoor last night, where we were so intent on getting cars and elder where they needed to go that we completely forgot younger, who had indoor percussion.  Who said at 8:30 as we were all finally sitting down to dinner, "I guess no indoor tonight."

Only my dinner plate prevented me from doing a *headdesk*. And then commenced a whole downward spiral wherein I started tearing myself up for all my failings with both kids, and now I can't remember anything unless I leave myself a trail of Post It notes.

So hubby, ever the master at intervening in one of these episodes, gave me a stern talking to this morning. 

Totally well meant. I picked up what he laid down. 

So I made a list of things I needed elder to do today.  He himself whiffed on an appointment yesterday, so he also had some making up to do. We sat together at the dining room table with his laptop and phone and started knocking some of the easier stuff out together. 

Actually, he knocked it out; I sat by and made sure he did it. 

Which is really all he needed all along. I was knocking out some of my own to-dos alongside him as he made up his missed appointment. He did one thing, though, that I am particularly happy with: one of his workmates asked for someone to sub for them tonight. For the first time, with a little prompting from me, he volunteered to pick up some hours. So that's where he is right now. 

And it's occurred to me that maybe he has his own ideas of what his life needs to look like, and maybe he has his own roadmap to get there. 

So I am going to continue to carve some time out of my day to sit with him to make sure he gets the homework done. We all have our nonpreferred activities, and sometimes we need a little company while we're doing them. 

Kick start?

 So I'm trying to get elder back on the rails. 

Dear, mulish elder.

My head hurts just thinking of all the things we need to do. He's doing little to nothing to help his own situation, pleading "frozen with indecision."

We reconnected with the Office for Vocational Rehab, and the half hour on the books stretched for an hour. It was a good meeting, and his case manager gave us a lot of good leads to get started.

But.  He needs to start.  Not me. I did this already.

And he's not wanting to start anything. 

He's got a long list of things he needs to be doing. 

And I can't seem to motivate him to do any of it. 

Elder Rules

 So we have an update to the scheduling dilemma....

Elder followed up with one of his managers just now--no script, kinda showed, but he was ok without it. Full disclosure, I was not even on the same floor when he made the call, but he has one volume setting: loud.

Anyhoo, I heard him dial in and greet his manager professionally, politely, and enthusiastically. He was appropriately apologetic for any inconvenience he was causing, and they came to a mutually agreeable solution. 

And he came upstairs with a gloating grin. Because he showed me, didn't he?

I grinned back. "So what did we learn?"

Grinned dimmed slightly, "when you tell me to schedule time off, to schedule the time off."

"And that would have solved a whole lot of grief up front, wouldn't it?"

Still grinning, but now slightly annoyed: "Yes, mom."

What kind of mom would I be if I didn't ensure he learned something from his escapades?

Checking Boxes

 So yesterday ended up being a mental health preservation kind of day.  In addition to my own weekly session, elder had me also sitting in on his.  I left my session recharged just enough to have his drain me again. 

I need to be positive here. He's come a long way in some ways the last two years--he's had a lot of his own management stuff to put in place before we can move the ball forward. Apparently, he's only willing to move the ball forward if the ball staying behind negatively impacts his contentment. 

Case in point:  we have a family thing coming up, and both dad and I told him to alert his work so he wouldn't be scheduled. He did not. He was scheduled over the event. Now he's upset.  He's even more upset that dad and I aren't going to reroute plans to accommodate the work thing (natural consequences). So now he is working to reroute his schedule. 

I'm a little bit holding my breath here; this is the preferred job, he's been there almost 5 years, and I would hate for him to lose it over something stupid, like his taking the wrong tone with a manager. 

I listened in on his half of the conversation with a manager on the phone last night while pretending to be intent on something else. He sounded fine. He didn't resolve the issue, but he hung up the phone in a better mood and told me he would get back in touch with them today and see what he can arrange. 

Not related:  I went to my own appointment earlier in the day and someone called my name. It was someone who knew me who was there with her daughter.  I said hello, exchanged pleasantries, and then R came out for me. I laughingly told him when we got back to his office that everyone seems to know me and my boys, so they have me at a disadvantage. And now they can go advertise to the world that I'm in therapy.

We talked about that a few minutes, where it's a shame there's stigma attached to seeing someone to keep your head screwed on straight. I observed that for all the stuff we have going on, we have 100 problems and Horsham Clinic ain't one of them. 

(and this had always always always loomed in the back of my mind that this could be a thing.  Even despite everything elder has gone through, this is not one of those things.)

So yay, no crisis. Just the slog. 

Back to that. I had to hear about what a nag I was during elder's session.  Not that I have to defend my position, but it always seems to fall on me to explain (for the millionth time) that his goal is full time, competitive employment--benefits, the whole nine.  His therapist looked at me with something that looked like pity, that I would even DREAM such a thing is possible. 

Meanwhile, my younger guy is plugging along and quietly slaying all manner of things.He kept me up late last night waxing poetic about Jaws and asking me if we could watch it together. I'm sure we can clear a couple hours to do that this weekend. 

(I need to remember to pay his tuition)

This week has been all about checking all the boxes. I did a little of my own this week. A couple of things were less about goals and emotional needs and more about doing the things because I didn't want guilt about the consequences of things left undone. 

I should feel better about having done the thing, but I don't. 

That's kinda why therapy.

I need to celebrate the things we accomplish and keep reminding myself  that these things are worthy of celebration. Our work never ends. So we need to allow ourselves a minute or whatever time we need to acknowledge when our hard work pays off.

Let's celebrate that check in the box.

And keep building.

No Easy Way Up the Mountain

 Back at it. I had my moment of resting on a peak and enjoying the sunset, but now it's time to get serious (insert spit take). Except that elder is not ready to get serious, and that is 95 percent of my issue.

(Let's be clear that this is my issue.  He's fine with the status quo.)

We had (briefly) glimpsed a FT opportunity that would have been too perfect; in an ideal world, one of his jobs would allow him to convert to FT.  Unfortunately, our world is not ideal, and I'm back where I started this week, spinning my wheels and exhausted.

However, it's currently 49 degrees and sunny, so maybe a little outside time on the balcony can help...

A Puzzlement

 Another 3 am epiphany....

Lately, I have been obsessed with sudoku.  We have books of it we have gotten for elder, and since he's not solving them, I am, obsessively.  My daily crossword is not the challenge I need it to be, I guess.

On the face of it, it seems a huge waste of time. There are certainly many other things I could and should be doing.  Dig a little deeper, and you understand the way my brain works. While I am actively working a puzzle (apparently, the knottier, the better), I have a myriad of backend processes going. My latest internal hegira has been going backward in time and trying to figure out the whys and hows of my thinking and feeling. At first blush, it seems incredibly selfish and self-serving, but at 3 am, the why of this journey had become crystal clear.

Elder.

I've been lamenting for months about stuck. I've been reading this state as any parent might--laziness, lack of motivation, inertia...you get the idea.

It finally hit me that it's not *just* autism, and it's not *just* trauma--it's also anxiety.  Fear of rejection. Fear of the unknown. All the fears, if I'm honest.

When is self-regulation not self-regulation?  When it's fear. Masked. 

That would be younger. 

So it's no surprise that unbraiding all my shit, as inconvenient as it may be to some, is largely in service to helping my guys understand what they are dealing with and how to deal with it. So, no apologies, I gotta do what I gotta do....

The boys are counting on me. 

My Star

 I met my sister from another mister in October 2004.  We had been a part of an online support group of parents of children with autism, so I guess you could say we knew each other before we met. The occasion was a fundraising walk for autism, and a bunch of us met up at the old spectrum to participate--the farthest flung coming from New York and Maryland.

There's a picture of four of us, somewhere, me, with baby G in my arms, a spider monkey of a toddler, and K and two other women. K had purchased a colorful weighted lizard for one of her boys and walked with it slung over her shoulder. G rode in his stroller, flanked by elder and dad.  The four of us dropped K off at the train station later, and I think that was when our friendship began.

We emailed each other daily and occasionally talked on the phone. My kids were in the autism sibling study at Kennedy Krieger, younger the subject, elder, the control. When we met, G was about two years outside of his dx, and the worry of a dx that would eventually come was the other shoe I was waiting for to drop. 

K dismissed me. "G is a star," she said. 

I always wondered what that meant. But her words were always there as he grew up, even those really dark days when he retreated into himself, and I was afraid I'd never see him again.  He was a star. Stars shine. And for a while, he was dark.

How was he going to shine?

He found lots of ways. I could sit here and type out a pretty exhaustive list of the things he's done in the last 17 years or so to make good on Miss K's words. While elder worked today, we ran errands with younger, who went off a few times to do his own thing while dad and I took care of business. And inwardly, I marveled at the fact that he COULD, in fact, go off on his own and do his own thing, and it really wasn't that big a deal. 

But to me, it's a huge deal. We didn't know if we'd ever get here. And each frontier we push back brings a whole new set of challenges. Make no mistake, we still have huge swaths of ground we need to cover with both kids.

But.  The older guy just got his first post secondary degree and continues to work two jobs he's held for five years (in March and June). And I had to post the pic below because I still can't believe that happened. All things being equal, everybody has stuff they need to overcome. My older guy complains a lot about his allotment. My younger guy, on the other hand, quietly keeps pushing forward.

He'll always be my baby. And he'll always be my star.

Fighting His Own Battles

 It's been a busy couple days here at Autism Central.

Younger looks like he is rolling his way to the playoffs in bowling.  Although he is not rolling Varsity (fortunately, he already has his letter, so he doesn't care--much), he's leading his squad to victory on the regular. His second marking period has no grades below a B, despite his challenging course load, and he starts spring semester as a dual enrollee at the community college this week. YAY.

Elder got his diploma, an Associate Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, magna cum laude. For his next trick, he will start applying for full time jobs.  In the meantime, he is finding himself in situations he calls "Curb Your Enthusiam."

We're sitting at dinner tonight, recounting our respective days. After dad asks me about my day, Elder says, "you know what, I had someone yell at me today for answering the phone." 

Dad and I both set our utensils down and look at him.  He continues,"Yeah, it was like 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.'  This girl and someone else were waiting on someone and I answered the phone, and she let me have it."

"Um," I raise my fork, "you are doing customer service, now. And she has to know that."

"Well, she told me I shouldn't be doing that," he continued. "But it's okay, I went to [the executive director] and complained."

Dad and I exchange glances.  Elder goes on, not noticing our reactions or ignoring them altogether, "She told me I was providing excellent customer service and told me to cut [complainer] some slack because she's having a hard time."

We sit with this a sec.  Once upon a time, there would have been some major script-writing and war-rooming over an encounter like this. Elder looks over at us, shrugs and smiles, "It's all good."

It is all good. He's doing the things on his own, on the fly, in the moment. 

The next time I start complaining about stuck, I'm going to re-read this and remind myself he is not nearly as stuck as I think he is.