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.