...it can stay, I don't have to - part 2...

Remember that time I wrote about The Wall?

Well, I did what I set out to do.

I stopped it from being the focal point, and went ahead and worked my way around it.

In fact, I jumped right on  that task the following day.

(Ikea to the rescue!)

We took our measurements, noting just how much room it was taking up.  Carefully lining up the tape to see how far it protruded into our space.  Top to bottom.  Side to side.  Deepest crevice to sharpest point.  The rock wall just sat there, immovable and implacable.   Up close and personal...noting each inch...I saw its ugliness.  Gray and brown rocks of no consequence or complemement.  Some glossy.  Others lusterless.   Dusty film adhered to that sticky coating of time or humidity or sealant...indeterminate.  I felt the crumbling plaster holding it together.  I saw chips in its grim face...where someone else-sometime else...must have tried to move around it or past it, and come up short.  The crash of one solid object into another...unyielding.  Fracture lines crazed around those chips...a testament to both its lifelong strength and eventual weakness.  

I saw its ugliness.

And didn't care.

Already, just by measuring it, I had rendered it defunct.

The Wall-In the Living Room-With the Measuring Tape.

I win! (Remember the game 'Clue'?)

We sprinted in the homestretch, down the corridors of Ikea.  Rounding each corner with purpose.  Eyeing up each shelf and cabinet...debating dimensions...focusing first on form, then on function.

Finally settling our sights on the one.  The Brusali cabinet, in white...

Discussed. Dissected. Decided.

Done.

Home we came with his new cabinet, my new office drawers (and more than a few other bits and pieces, because...Ikea?!?) and a concrete plan: he to organize, I to assemble.

It's fixed now.  The Wall.  Fixed in the spayed/neutered sense of the word.  Its there...sort of...but completely overshadowed.  There, but unnoticed.

The cabinet pulls the room together.  Brings order to the space.  Closed doors hide his toolboxes and supplies.  Shelves bear the weight of education...binders and files and textbooks organized, just so.   And high up on the top shelf, his current favourite Transformers hold court.

(The rest are banished to storage bins until we move!)

The room makes sense now.  It's ready for the life that happens in it.

The Wall is stopped.  I took it's place and made space from it...space for him.  

***The Wall is still there.  The Wall is still ugly.  But somehow, remarkably, it's nigh on invisible behind the sensible and serviceable piece that now stands before it...behind the life I built beyond it.

~Leanna

...here for the highs and the lows and the highschool...

We waited for the bus to arrive this morning, on this first day of a new school year.

We waited, and walked, and talked.

I'd forgotten our tradition, you see. The one where I read to him from "The Hardy Boys".  We've been inching our way through the series since kindergarten, a chapter or so per day as we pace back and forth in the heat of early fall ~ the crisp cool of autumn ~ the thin, breath-stealing chill of winter ~ and so on.  Some days we're running late and I barely get in a sentence before the bus squeals to a stop.  Others it's a chapter and then some, words rushing by as my watch ticks off the minutes and we wonder if the driver forgot us.

I'll remember tomorrow, no doubt. I've already laid a fresh new book out next to the door, so I can't miss it.  Now I just have to figure out where I "cleaned up and organized" away our bookmarks to, and I'll be good to go!

At any rate, this morning I forgot.  So instead of reading and listening, we walked in an ever-widening circle, talking our way through his first-day jitters and all the empty platitudes of encouragement that I could only hope he wouldn't actually need to rely on but put breath and sound to anyway.  He let me ramble on about all the new coming his way today, interrupting to redirect the conversation to his latest design ideas.   I interrupted right back, steering us into the "call me...email me...google hangout me" if anything goes wrong.   

I looked up at him in the middle of our conversation. Looked all the way up...all 6'4" from my 5'8" vantage and thought to myself "what a marvel it is to have raised up this young man who I look up to!" and I must have smiled at the thought because he asked me why I was smiling. 

I said this:

"Because I have been the lucky one."

I.  Have been.  The lucky one.

I, alone...have been the wingwoman ~ the ride along ~ the plus one ~ the teammate ~ the encourager ~ the consoler ~ the counsel giver ~ the rage receiver ~ the advocate ~ the single solitary only parent.  

The mother.

The lucky one.

Here through the lows, and here for the highs.  Here for the jeers and tears and hugs.  Here for the meltdowns that left scars on my shins.  Here for the 3am sleepwalking and the night terrors that fed my insomnia.  Here for the homework headaches and the teacher tribulations.   The sensory calamities, the volume catastrophes and the sleepless nights.  Here for every single hug and every single smile and every single laugh...every honest, gut-jiggling, jaw-cracking laugh.  Here for the parenting.  Here for the motherhood.  The one lucky enough to be here.

I've been here all along.

I haven't missed a thing.

He starts high school today. 

And I am overjoyed and heartbroken, in awe and nerve-wracked....I am all those things that all we mothers are on the first days of every new chapter.  I am full of memory, of everything that's come before.

I will spend my day missing him, trying to distract myself with work. I will wonder if he's found a familiar face or a quiet space.  I'll be preoccupied by concerns and worries and nerves.  I'll miss him.

And he?

He will be himself. Wholly himself, just as he always is.  As his autism frees him up to be.  Brave and bold.  Secure in his sense of self.  Determined to use all the strategies he's learned to cope with the noise and the crowd and the pace and the newness of it all.

He will be overwhelmed, but he won't let it show.  He will be curious, but keep his questions silent.  He will squeeze himself down into a small version of himself and try to blend in, unseen and unnoticed.  He will shut down and shut out and shut off.  He will cope, to the best of his ability. 

And when he comes home, I will be here, as I always am...smile on face, arms wide open...

And he will wait until the bus pulls round the corner and we are far beyond the sightline of the other kids  to rush into those arms and tell me, as he has every day of every year..."I missed you."

~Leanna

...the Freshman, 15...

It started with a facebook post, yesterday...

My alarm chimed at 4:30am ("Never Enough" from The Greatest Showman as a riff on my lack of sleep) and I groped around in the dark, desperate to silence it.  The book I had given up on just an hour or so prior took a nosedive off my nightstand and Katja Noel (she of the 9 lives and counting) scowled at me from the nest she'd made between my knees.  "Shhh!", I hissed at her and the book and the carpet and alarm.  She gave me "the look": the rolled eyes/eyebrow scowl that only teenage girls and cats (and teenage girl cats) can do, and allowed me to untangle myself from her bed. 

Remarkably, I made it from bed to kitchen with nary a misstep.  Remarkable, when you take into consideration that the floor is a veritable minefield of Transformers, Transformers pieces, and all those incomprehensibly sharp little discards of my in-house design engineer's scratch builds.  

(And this after...yes, after...cleaning it all up mid-afternoon the day before.)

Now, where was I?

Ah, yes, the kitchen.  4:35am-ish...

...where I stood in front of an open refrigerator in a complete fog...contemplating lasagna.

Yes, lasagna.

And cake.

More specifically, cheesecake.

Trying my damndest to remember the ingredients.

Then the fog cleared a bit and my brain woke up and remembered...

Breakfast. 

(Not lasagna or cheesecake, sadly.)

 

Coffee made...ouch, too hot, from reheating...the handle of my mug leaving a red mark on my finger.

Into the kitchen proper then....ingredients out, utensils ready, food prep underway.

While this and then that were frying and boiling, quick scroll through the phone for updates and emails. Silent groan at the inbox. Sip...calm...repeat. Fresh press of coffee, tea to steep, OJ plus probiotics whisked (ugh), water. Plating food, cutting fruit, tray ready. 

The phone gave off a warning buzz...vibrating a second before alarm #2 went off.  This one...audio clip from a Transformers soundtrack, with its own name: "the son also rises". 

(I name my alarms.  I'm quirky like that.)

I raise the lights from dark to dim and gently pull the cover from his face.  Whisper my good morning, then repeat it...louder by degrees.  He grimaces, eyes still closed.  Frown lines in the brow.  Slants open eyelids and clutches his bedding to him, burying his face in Henry Raccoon.  Something...some indistinguishable utterance...all consonants, I think.

"Good morning, love."

He's annoyed at my chipper...growls a "why are you being so cheerful?" in my direction, so I drop the pretense and hand over his coffee.

Breakfast...refills...shower...alarms every two minutes as I knock on the bathroom door signaling him to move on to the next step: soak, soap, rinse, shampoo, rinse, face, rinse, etc... Double check that the clothes are laid out-had to spend 1/2 hour last night going over options. Knock...2 minutes...knock...2 minutes...knock...

Finally the squeal of the water turning off and the "I love you, Mami" as he comes out. It's a question, not a statement.

"I love you, Mami?"

Meant to elicit the same response... 

I love you more. I love you the most. 

Not possible. Possible.

Not probable. Probable.

Inconceivable. Conceivable.

Incomprehensible. Prehensibibibi-bibbidy-bobbity-boo-I-Love-You!

 

I wash the breakfast dishes while he gets ready. Print out a second copy of today's schedule and write in the class name, room and teacher next to each time slot. Tear the house apart looking for his keyfob: the one that has a pill dispenser for his rescue remedy and another for his earplugs. MIA!!! Why didn't I do this last night?  Where did I hide all my replacements?  Wait...one last spot I didn't look...Found it! (Pat myself on the back for being a genius...ha!)  Onto the table it goes.  Check the list, then check it twice...Santa style?  

He's ready-ish...still teeth to brush (sensory processing dysfunction, anyone?) and hair to brush (ditto).  I have him squat down so I can reach the top.  Put the brush away and close the cabinet, giving myself the once over in the mirror and frowning.  How is there sleep in my eyes when I didn't sleep?

Alarm #3 calls from wherever I last left my phone.  The "Tokyo Ghoul remix" elicits a grin from him. The alarm name, "Beginning of the end", gets me a pair of rolled eyes.

We grab the stack I've put together by the door: pad, pen, glasses case, key fob, water bottle...walk down the driveway and contemplate: the meaning of life, the fear of navigating new hallways, and the ongoing existence of the same kids who bullied him for the past 9 years.   I check my phone far too frequently...noting every passing minute past the scheduled bus stop time. Worrying that he's been skipped. It's happened before.  Worrying that we got the time wrong.  Hasn't happened yet.  He chatters on about his latest design ideas, filling the empty morning with sound to drown out his nervousness. I run through my checklist mentally, then verbally. Step by step directions for him.

Brakes squeal as the bus pulls up across the street. I grab his hand...motherhood 101 makes me firmly grip him and say "look both ways" as though he's still a toddler.  He lets me get away with it, or maybe doesn't even notice.  No "Mooooooom...I'm 15/too old for this/etc..."  We make our way across, aware of the annoyed drivers stopped in their morning commute.  Aware that we are, momentarily, a spectacle.  He puts one foot on the bottom step, then turns..quickly...to peck me on the cheek...before disappearing into the shadows of the bus.   I feel the warmth his face left on mine.  The driver mumbles at me...something about when and where to expect him later on. I smile, nod, wave...walk hurriedly back across the street to wave and smile as the bus pulls away.   Wondering if it's ok, my waving.  Wondering if someone else is laughing at him because I'm waving.  My hand finally drops...sagging....my smile drops, too. I feel...empty...

One foot in front of the other...I walk...1/2 mile down, 1/2 mile back. The world is quiet. Just my footsteps on this stretch of road.   I see the golden glow of morning sun on the leaves and grasses. I stop and wait a while, watching a cardinal in the bush as he watches me.

I see a doe in the distance, back by the tree line...with her young one.   I see my shadow on the road and remember when his barely came up to my knee. My arms itch for a moment, the way they used to when he was a baby and I missed him while at work.

I touch my cheek, that spot where he pecked me goodbye.

I wish time would stop.  Would spin in reverse.  Let me live it again...longer, deeper.

He'll be home, soon enough. And I've things to do before the bus returns. Back up the drive and in to the house.  Picking up the bits and pieces of a busy morning.  Log in to my work-site while I refill my coffee. All the while my head is with him...my heart is with him. He leaves, and I split in two...

He'll be home, soon enough. With a list of things we've yet to buy. Teacher pages.  Supplies needed. Ideas he's had. Drawings he's scribbled while there. 

15.

Today.

At Freshmen Orientation.

15, and on to high school.

And my arms itch at the thought.

If I close my eyes he's a baby again.  What wonder!

...a toddler...a kindergartner...a 6th grader...a guest speaker at Rutgers...

If I close my eyes, he's all the boys he's been before, all the boys I've loved so.

And when I open them...he's all the ones he's yet to become.

He'll be home, soon enough.  Orientation but a 3 hour day.  I'll be there at the bus stop, waiting. 

He'll come home...different, changed, grown.  Some new information learned and processed.  Some new experience filed away in that computer of a brain of his.

The mantle of Freshman secure on his shoulders. 

~Leanna