Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Confessions



It is not quite 8 am on Tuesday.  The children are on their buses headed to school.  The house that is usually full of squeals and laughter and stomping is now quiet but for the loud tick of the Mickey Mouse clock keeping the time.  I am at the keyboard writing to you and to myself.

I am procrastinating.  The reality of the day is trying its best to get my attention and I am doing my dead level best to avoid it.  I have been doing a lot of that lately.  I have gotten good at procrastinating and avoiding.  I am behind in my school work.  There is a paper I should have finished but instead I am typing this blog amidst a table littered with unorganized paper and notes encircling my workspace like the walls of a crazy cozy igloo.  There are calls I should have made but haven't.  There are chores to be done that have not been carried through.  I have lost track of the last time I worked out.

So now you understand.  I am not perfect by a long stretch.  I am not a martyr or a saint.  I am a perfectly ordinary person who is perfectly capable of becoming perfectly paralyzed by the realities around me.  I struggle and fail in so many areas.  I could ponder my imperfections.  Heck, I could have help with that.  There are many out there who would relish in telling me how very imperfect I am.  I could walk through my house and note all that needs to be done.  I could stare at the computer screen with unfinished school work.  I could stand on the scale and lament the pounds that have eeked their way back to me.  I could wallow.  Wallowing would be easy and safe and in a strange way... comforting.

But I think of the fact that I am posting on Isaac's blog.  I can for Isaac.  I think of the countless hours and weeks he has spent learning the basic bits of every skill he has ever attained.  I think of the times he has succeeded and of the times he has forgotten and given back ground he has gained.  There is nothing so frustrating as watching your child try in vain to remember a skill that was once mastered and is now lost to the cognitive deficits of disability.

When Isaac loses a skill, we double up and reteach it.  We sometimes have to start back from the beginning.  Sometimes we have to go before the beginning and reteach the introductory skills relevant to the skill he has lost.  When Isaac is stuck, we work to free him.  That boy is full of lessons.  I feel stuck.  I must work to free myself.  The chores will not be accomplished by birds and squirrels circa Snow White; the paper will not fly together of its own accord; the pounds will not disappear on their own.  I am stuck.  I must choose to move and I must work to make progress.

When Isaac was born, I refused an epidural.  Though I hate needles, my primary objection had less to do with the needle and more to do with the fact that I wanted to fully walk through the journey of birth with my son.  It was a beginning way for me to experience life with him and not ask him to do anything I was not willing to do myself.  Isaac is 15.  He struggles to learn and then relearn and then relearn again.  I find myself again holding his hand as I do the same thing.

Its good to confess imperfections.  Its good to show your underbelly.  We expose our humanity.  We share our journey.  We pull each other along and we share our achievements.  We get an opportunity to love.  With love and thoughts of my son and of you dear friends, I am off to face my dragons, do some chores and write a paper.

"So...be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea, you're off to Great Places!  Today is your day!  Your mountain is waiting.  So...get on your way!"  Oh, the Places You'll Go  Dr. Seuss

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