The Year of Living Hopefully

Something about writing makes me unusually philosophical. My tendency is to be very grounded in the here and now, although people tell me I must be more optimistic than I think I am or I wouldn’t get up day after day with even a glimmer of hope that things might go better that morning. Well, I suppose that’s true. But to be honest I don’t normally sit around and wax poetically about the gift of pain or blah blah blah whatever I said yesterday.

I really meant all that about appreciating the struggle. I really did. But then here’s what happened. I read over the blog post a couple times, made a few small edits, and closed my laptop feeling pretty darned good about myself. I mean, I can look at all the crap life deals me and focus on the good stuff! I can even find beauty in the actual crap! I hope I inspire all of you readers to do the same, even a little!

After I closed my laptop, I got on with the work of the day, making the surprisingly complicated salad I had volunteered to bring to Thanksgiving dinner with the in-laws, and getting everybody else up and showered and ready to go at a reasonable time. We were shooting for a 2:00 departure, so we all got to sleep in and have a leisurely morning. Around noon I started to get serious, though. The salad was under way, but Maddie hadn’t gotten up yet and even though we still had two hours before departure, I know how things go, so I paused mid-salad and went to her room. With my sunniest and silliest disposition, I hugged her and said, “Hey, time to get up and take a shower!” All smiles and enthusiasm. That’s how I always approach these things. Let’s have fun! I am trying to say every single time.

No reaction. Possibly a grunt. Maddie grabbed the blanket I had pulled down, and re-coccooned herself for the day. Oh boy, here we go.

Earlier in the morning I had a flashback to last Thanksgiving and the detour the Party City we had to take in order to get Maddie into the car. She wanted to go to that store so badly, and it’s sort of on the way to my in-laws’ house, so even though we INSISTED it would be closed on Thanksgiving, she really wanted to make sure (even though there was no answer when I called the store), so we said, “OK, we’ll stop there.” And of course we drove all the way through the huge, empty Costco-Target parking lot up to the front door before we confirmed it was in fact closed, and off we went to a really nice dinner with only about a 20-minute detour. It wasn’t easy, but we got it done. You do what you gotta do, right?

So even before my first attempt to get Maddie going yesterday, I was taken a bit back down to earth. This wasn’t going to be easy, I knew. The word impossible hadn’t entered my thoughts–yet.

After my first failed attempt to get her up, I realized I needed help. I still had work to do, including getting myself together, so I recruited my husband for the job. Even my son pitched in, actually telling her she was the only person he wanted to hang out with at Thanksgiving. I thought she might respond to that–after all, that’s a huge statement from your younger brother–but she had decided. And, as we know, when she has DECIDED, it’s done.

In that moment, though, I suddenly wasn’t willing to accept that. She had been at home doing absolutely nothing for weeks. I hadn’t asked her to get up for school. I hadn’t told her when to go to bed. She mostly didn’t get dressed. I don’t even know if she’s been brushing her teeth (doubtful). I mean, I really just took a vacation.

And after my husband had a discussion with her (of unknown substance), she still hadn’t budged.

So, I though to myself, I am sick and tired of her not doing a damned thing when she’s perfectly capable of more. And I resolved myself to making this thing happen. All she had to go was go hang out at another house. We even got to bring our dogs, so if all else failed, she (or I, for that matter), could just go out in the backyard and play with them.

So I insisted. And I insisted HARD. Give me that phone, I said. As if that ever works. I decided I was going to have that phone even if it killed me. I grabbed it. She pulled it away. I grabbed it again, and after a fair bit of wrestling, I emerged the victor. A glass of water somehow got involved and we both got wet. Something snapped in my neck and I had an instant migraine. But I had the phone.

Yay.

And then magically she appeared resigned to her fate. She headed to the bathroom for a shower. I volunteered to help her shampoo because she has a massive head of long hair and she’s just still not very good at it. I brought her a full set of clean clothes, too. This was happening! I will just give her the phone back once we’re in the car, and everything will be OK!

A little while later she turned up in my bedroom wrapped only in a towel.

“I brought you some clean clothes. Did you see them?”

“Oh, you did?” she replied meekly. And then her face scrunched up suddenly and tears began to flow. “I am not up for this!” she cried.

I didn’t know what to say exactly, but I could see she was in distress. “Go put some clothes on and we’ll talk about it,” I offered, trying to figure out what to do now.

And then, as she was at my bedroom door, she turned to me and now fully crying, she said, “I’m ashamed of myself for one thing. I haven’t taken my medicine in two weeks.”

My heart sank. Her medicine is Prozac, and she needs it. Obviously. A couple days without it is OK, but two weeks and you’re headed back to whatever brain chemistry made it necessary in the first place (side note: anxiety and depression are common in kids with Asperger’s).

And then I knew what I needed to do. I needed to let her be. I know what it feels like to be swallowed up and rendered helpless by those feelings. If you have never experienced clinical depression before, let me tell you, it is consuming and debilitating. So my heart changed in an instant. All I wanted was to make her feel OK. Forget about Thanksgiving dinner or whatever, just take care of my daughter. And she wanted me to stay home.

But I happen to have two other people in my family, including a husband who doesn’t spent much time with his family and really had his heart set on spending the day with his family–his WHOLE family, including his wife and kids. Maddie was now officially out of the picture, but what could I do? I had to choose whom to let down, basically.

My heart was breaking under the pressure of it all when I decided to chat with Maddie one more time. I knew she would probably just sit in her room and play Minecraft all day, so my being there probably wouldn’t end up being that meaningful to her, but still I had to check. I asked her if she would be OK, and she gave me the permission to go. I was so grateful.

Still, it was a rough day. I was in a terrible mood, and I think in reality we all were, my husband, my son, and I. There were multiple little squabbles–some escalating into big ones–throughout the day. I think we were all just upset the events of the morning. Sometimes our family life is magical, and other times it’s just too damned hard. We don’t get to do things the way other families do. Our vacations are tough (I’ll write later about our summer trip) and even going to a movie or Thanksgiving dinner seems to have become an inevitable source of battle in which even a “win” feels like losing.

Am I grateful for that Struggle yesterday? Not at all. It was terrible. Perhaps in the future I can lump it together with all the stuff I felt so grateful for yesterday, but today I just feel the wound. I’m sad. I’m traumatized, quite frankly.

And now I’m absolutely freaking out about trying to get Maddie back to school next week. I fear I’ve seen the future, and it isn’t pretty. And yet Monday morning I will wake her up in my silly, sunny way and hope for the best.