Is Today the Day?

 I’m writing from the relative safety of bed.

About 2 hours ago shit went sideways.

When I set out on my kayak 3 hours ago, the air was still and the water calm. Checking weather, I had at least two hours if not more of the same. I packed some water and snacks—along with both phones—into my dry bag and set off for the far side of the peninsula—perhaps 2 klicks as the crow flies.

A leisurely paddle and wind from the East got me there in about 15 minutes. I hugged the shore and watched all the birds. Looked up at the sky. Marked some milestones in my head and talked some things through and allowed the truth to hit the air—a pretty productive few things in it of themselves.

I noticed the drift and where I was in the bay at about the same time the winds started picking up. My point of return lay on the other side of the peninsula, so I started paddling….

And…shit. A stiff wind greeted me on the other side of it and banged me against the shore.

Shit. I jumped out of the kayak and ported it to the nearest beach. That was slightly more eventful than expected, mostly because the ground underneath the water wasn’t solid, meaning I had a whole other world of trouble if I didn’t keep moving.

That’s about the point where I wondered if this is how it ends.

I dragged the kayak onto the beach and sat for a moment.  Flailing about in panic wouldn’t get me anywhere. I took a drink and looked around. Checked the wind and realized that even if I did a hard paddle straight for our dock, the wind would make sure I gained no ground.

Tacking would work, though.

I put in again and hugged the shore. This was about triple the distance, but I didn’t care. I just needed to get back. I sent hubby a picture and my location. Then paddled.

At some point the wind died down. I passed some paddlers coming out. They were four in two, and with an outfitter so would be okay. I paddled until all I needed to do was drift south to our pier.

And I did.

So today was not the day.

Unexpected Fun

 Back to school time is particularly spiky this year. I hate the constant reminders of what we’re not. I’m not sure what is worse, those reminders or the negative reinforcement that I need to try to account and correct for. This shit is getting hard as the grey, wrinkles and all the ‘end of life’ cycles start to kick in.

There’s the added bit of “shit that never happened’ that unexpectedly and inconveniently rears its ugly head while we’re trying to do the business of living our lives.

Case in point; it’s Saturday night in a party town and it’s time for us to figure out dinner. I had my own ugly meltdown and a couple shitfits trying to get the boys and I from point A to point b with a stop in between. Here’s how I know I’m frayed; shit I used to hide effortlessly is waaaay out in the open. I don’t have the spoons to hide my crazy. I don’t care. I’m tired.

“Mom, let’s go,” elder said once we unpacked the car. “Let’s go to our usual.”

I don’t bother telling him that our usual wouldn’t be possible if we allowed him to dissuade us from coming in the first place. I’m tired. We head over to our place; there’s a line. I put us on the waitlist. We people watch. I sing 80s songs with younger as the house band plows through their playlist. We finally have a table; when younger gets carded, I explain we’re there for dinner. It’s the second time in as many hours my kids are carded. Elder is beside himself both times explaining he doesn’t drink. Younger is quiet and allows elder to speak for him. 

We sit. Order food. Sing along with the band. It occurs to me that I’m having a night out with the boys they should both be having with peers. But there’s only me. And we have fun anyway. And I have more fun with them than I did when I was their ages and struggling to fit in.

It occurs to me that they have the better deal.

And that gratitude is in order.

It could always be worse.

And they aren’t any the wiser.

And sometimes it is a beauty contest

 This morning has me contemplating all the things.

Mostly elder right now, and there’s a lot that falls into his bucket.  He’s trending toward full time hours, but is stuck. Again. Baseball is his obsession du jour, and like every other obsession he’s ever had, he cranks it to 11. But baseball isn’t his biggest problem.  I could argue that parenting him is.

He’s having the usual needing’ to differentiate ‘ from us, and everyone is having boundary issues. I’m of the camp that he needs to figure some of his own shit out and dad still wants to direct, and elder would just rather tell us what he wants and we need to figure out how to make it happen.

Here I dig in my heels.

Growth is uncomfortable AF. You need to do some painful things and put yourself in hard places, but it’s necessary. I know; I’ve done it, still doing it, and every day I need to ground myself in the things I love to push outward and onward.

This is what he needs to learn to do.

Hopefully he figures it out before we’re gone.

Bound up in this stuckness is his self-worth.  He noted to me the other day while we were talking about his brother’s movie obsession “G got to pick his classes [in high school]. Nobody ever asked me what I wanted.”

I’ve sat with this quite a bit. While it’s not strictly speaking true, as he did give us some input, he also took the path of least resistance—if someone told him it was a good idea, he signed off so he could get back to whatever he was thinking about.

His brother never signed off on squat. He has always figured out his own stuff. The more dad and I pushed an agenda, the more autistic he looked. He looks tons more capable steering his own boat.

Elder uses his agency differently, and has been disappointed to learn that the world won’t cut him a break based on his dx. He’s been angling for student or employee of the month for the last 7 years or so and still speaks bitterly about the fact that it never happened for him while he was at the VoTech.

I still hear about the ‘lazy good looking guy’ who beat him out his first year and the bitterness about getting passed over his second at the VoTech. And not for nothing, the folks who spoke so well for him there wish him well, but wouldn’t hire him.

It says a lot about people’s expectations of him, in general.

I KNOW he can. I sometimes feel like I’m the only one who does.

We need to let him figure it out. He already knows life can be a beauty contest; he’s got to figure out his own way to reckon with it.