This post was mostly written last July. I was close to finishing it and then I chickened out, for reasons explained at the end. Today I was thinking about Libby's birthday. And about how even when I don't post anything else here for the entire year, I always do a birthday post. And about how I will write how proud I am of her and just how far she has come. And then I realized that I absolutely would not be doing justice to her progress if I did not finish up and publish "Walk to the Light." Because when I re-read last summer's work, I fully appreciate where we are today. Not just Libby... all of us.
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It’s just a Tuesday morning, day 2 of week 3 of 4 weeks of
summer school. We’re smack dab in the
middle of as much of a routine as we get in the summer time. I went to pick up Libby and saw her standing
outside with a teacher. I admired her
little top-of-the-head single pigtail that her hair is finally long enough to
hold again. She had a smile on her face
before I even said hello. I knelt in
front of her and greeted her the way I always do: “Hi Libby, it’s Mama.” The little smile grew. Out snuck the cutest giggle and a tiny
“MUmma!” She took a few tentative steps toward me, unassisted, reaching out
with her hands in the direction of my voice.
I scooped her up and plopped her in her car seat and waited for her to
scream in the ten seconds it takes me to walk from the back passenger side door
to the front driver side door. She
doesn’t scream anymore, but I’m still not used to that. The song ended on the radio and the deejay
started talking about last night’s Bachelorette episode. I waited for her to scream about the ten
seconds between songs that the deejays talk.
She doesn’t scream anymore, but I’m still not used to that. I remind myself that I’m driving a Big Girl
now. A three-year-old-preschool
graduate. She’s a new kid these days. She’s starting to use her words. “Libby, are you ready? Get set…” I wait for
her tiny voice to tell me “goooooooooooo!” And I gooooooooooooo.
I want to write today.
I haven’t wanted to write in such a long time. The words and tears just came spilling out of
me in the 4 blocks from school to home and I knew I needed to ignore all the
other things covering my kitchen counters and my desk and my mind, and just let
it out. I feel so full of hope today,
and I realize the feeling is growing familiar again. I feel light and bright sometimes. I’m still not used to that. But today… I feel like I need to share it. Like if I do, it will be more real. Like if I do, it will stick.
I’ve been living underground for about three years. At first when your child starts to show signs
of anxiety at the grocery store, you write it off as a bad day, or a “phase” if
it persists. When the “phase” grows from
a whimper to a full-blown tantrum, you look for reasons to shop alone, and then
feel guilty that you’re depriving your child of a learning experience. When the “phase” persists and gets a medical
diagnosis, you insist on challenging her.
You slap headphones over her ears, grit your teeth, ignore the looks and
comments, and parade her through store after store, week after week, to help
her grow. It’s hard. It’s getting harder, not better. You break after a while. You stop taking her all together, cold
turkey. You start shopping alone
again. The relief. The guilt. You decide the guilt is easier than the
alternative. And suddenly it’s been six
months since you took her in a store.
You start doing the same thing with restaurants. You can’t remember the last time you sat down
as a family in a restaurant. Park, play
dates, church functions, casual get-togethers with friends. You stop accepting. You stop thinking of these things as even
being an option. “We just can’t do those
kinds of things yet. Sorry.” You say
“yet” like it’s temporary. But your
heart believes it will be this way forever.
Underground.
You gave her what she wanted, what you thought she needed. You learned how to manage. You shop alone and deal with the guilt. You only eat in restaurants when you can
afford both the meal AND a babysitter. You
don’t go to friend’s houses; you occasionally invite people over, but it’s
always after she’s in bed. You can’t
possibly “deal with” company and your child at the same time. You’re coasting along, and someday it will
get better. You don’t yet know how, but
someday it will. It certainly can’t get
worse.
Oh, but it can. Next
you find yourself unable to run water because it’s the most offensive sound on
the planet. The air conditioner in the
summer, the heat in the winter. The
microwave. The dryer in the downstairs
laundry room just below her bed. Every
week it seems there’s something new, but the old doesn’t go away. It just keeps piling up. Next, it’s conversation. She can’t handle being in the same room while
people talk. Doctor’s visits are
impossible, deejay voices breaking in between songs on the radio, Mom and Dad
asking when she had her last diaper change or just how your day went. You shut down. You feel like you can’t do anything,
anytime. When she falls asleep for the
night and you’re “free” to talk to one another… you find you don’t remember
how. When you visit with family for the
first time in a year and they ask you simple questions, you respond like a
sullen teenager. Not because you’re
actually sullen, but because you’re actually at a loss for words. You prefer to just let others talk. You’re content to sit and listen and watch
life go by. People ask questions and
want to help but you’ve reached a point where you just don’t want it anymore, because
you’re too exhausted to even implement the best and easiest of ideas. You’ve become complacent, even comfortable in
the most uncomfortable of situations.
And now that you’re settled in, you don’t want to move.
I was underground. I
had become comfortable in darkness. What
I remembered of the light outside was harsh, blinding, burning. I preferred to pull the blankets over my head
and embrace the cold darkness. People
called for me from outside. Family,
friends, Libby’s teachers. I heard their
voices, sometimes I waved back, but I really just wanted to be left alone. They tried harder. They sent ropes down to me so I could pull
myself out. They propped a ladder
against my walls so I could climb out. Eventually
someone climbed down the ladder and grabbed me by the hand and strapped me into
a harness and they hefted me out of the pit.
“You need help. You
need help as a mom, and you need help as YOU.”
I didn’t open my eyes at first. I could feel the warmth of the sun on my
skin, and my brain knew I was being drenched in light. But my heart wasn’t ready to feel warm
yet. My heart felt safe in the dark and
cold. My heart was afraid of the light. But I did what they wanted me to do. I thought maybe I could give it a shot and
then when it didn’t work out (because it’s NOT going to help, NOTHING is going
to help), I could retreat underground again and resist all the harder next
time.
The first thing they wanted me to do was send her to
school. I did not see how this could be
possible. But, alas, it’s the law. She’s three, and the law says she is ready
and needs to receive her school services away from home. Yeah.
Right. The kid who doesn’t allow
Mom to ask Dad if he got the mail yet.
THAT kid can handle being confined in a classroom with a dozen other
noisy kids. Sure.
Turns out, she can. It wasn’t easy at first, but she learned
astonishingly quickly. It hurt my heart
a little that she could learn that fast at school when every little thing at
home is such a battle. It hurt my pride,
too.
The next thing they wanted me to do was switch to a new
therapy clinic. I liked the idea of a
shorter drive. I hated the idea of a new
therapist. Kelsey was safe. Kelsey had seen me cry and lose my crap. Kelsey had seen LIBBY cry and lose her
crap. Kelsey knew that a different
therapist would be able to help Libby, but I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to start over.
Yeah, that worked out fine, too. The kid who used to cry the minute we walked
in the door of the clinic, who used to need to be pushed in a swing for the
first ten minutes or sometimes an entire 45-minute session, now walks and talks
and uses her hands and says “yes” and “all done” and “bye bye” for any number
of different therapists who have no problem interchanging because Libby can
handle it.
Well, that was all well and good, but then they wanted me to
ask for help. Real help in my home. Libby’s needs were assessed and we qualified
for hours and hours per week of in-home assistance, paid for by a grant. This isn’t meant to be babysitting so I can work
more hours at the store. This is
HELP. It’s like home care. The idea is that when they come in, I can do
some cooking or cleaning or run some errands or even take a nap. It sounded incredibly appealing. It also sounded terrifying. This is my home,
my dark underground hole… and they wanted me to let people in on a regular
basis. Oh, the anxiety. We’d had babysitters before, sure, when we
could afford them. We never asked them
to feed her or bathe her or spend more than a couple hours with her before
bedtime. Now our help would be “hired”
through an outside payroll company and paid a wage that rivals any other
starting wage in town, and they would be asked to take off my plate the tasks
that cause me the most stress. I dragged
my feet harder than I’d ever dragged before.
School and therapy are one thing, but THIS? I’m accepting funds to turn
over my job as a parent, my entire LIFE – and let a teenager try to relieve me.
By now I should have seen the pattern and known it would be
fine. But boy, were those first weeks
hard. Those poor girls. I was a total MicroMomager. I would follow them around and say “do this
next” and “read this next” and I was worrying more than ever if Libby started
crying, because I didn’t want the girls to feel overwhelmed and shut down like
I had been. But again… it was fine. It was better than fine! With time I started
retreating downstairs to fold laundry and – gasp! – turn on the TV and enjoy
myself. Then I got a little more brave
and would run out quick to get a gallon of milk or fill the water jugs. By two months in, the girls could barely get in
the door before I would say goodbye and go run errands for two hours, go for a
long walk with a friend, or go out to eat with my husband. We took a girl to doctor’s appointments so she
could entertain Libby in the waiting room, and take her out of the treatment
room after she got upset so Mom and Dad could continue talking with her doctor. We took another girl away to my parents’
house for an entire weekend so she could help with Libby for hours on end while
we prepared for and enjoyed my brother’s wedding.
If only my present self could slap my past real hard in the
face. And then tell her to quit being
sad and lonely and proud and just take the help. I might have felt this good months ago. But boy, am I thankful that at least we are
where we are right now. Where we are is
a pretty good place. It’s a place that’s
far enough away from the darkness to finally be able to see how dark it
was. It’s a place that makes me squint
when I turn the other direction and look ahead at the possibilities that await
us, now that I listened to those who know better. Now that she’s growing. Now that I’M growing.
I had to learn that really hard thing that all the moms
learn. It’s Parenting 101: your kid WILL
behave better for others than she will for you.
Your kid IS capable of doing things she doesn’t do at home – it’s just
that she’s equally as stubborn as she is capable. It was a hard, hard lesson for me to learn,
because I had been telling myself for so long that “Libby is different” and we
can’t, can’t, can’t. And we’d created
this whole new world to shelter her, and it hurt to realize that she didn’t
need the shelter anymore. At some point
it had become a shelter for me, and a hindrance to her. And when she finally got some light and started
to flourish, it was really REALLY hard to realize that it was time for me to do
the same thing. To accept the help that
not all the other moms get, and that’s okay because I’m nothing like the other
moms. To start feeling again. To start living again.
I’m going to wrap it up the same way I always do. Our story is ours and it is unique, and if
you’re looking for a direct application to your life, you’re probably not going
to find it here. But the big picture is
this: if you’re underground somewhere, somehow… I have been there. I wondered if it would ever end. I can assure you that it does. If you’re not ready to grab the hand that is
reaching out to you, if you can’t understand why you’re more comfortable
wallowing than fixing… just leap.
And if you ARE one of those whose hand is extended, one of
those light-bearers shining and shining, calling and calling, and you’re not
even sure if they hear you… don’t stop.
They hear you. They see you. They feel your hand. Maybe right now that is all they need. But don’t go away. Knowing you are there and that you care is
maybe all the brightness they can handle right now, but it IS soaking in. And there will come a day that the brightness
finally reaches all of them, from nose to toes, and they feel okay and maybe
even a little sparkly, and YOU are the first person they want to hug. You are sharing their darkness; someday they
will want to share their light with you.
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Updated note, 10/31/16
I wrote this piece in July and was 95% done, and fiercely
proud that I was becoming a person who could admit the darkness I was
overcoming. And then the very next day, or
maybe even that same afternoon, I was derailed by a temper tantrum or something
of the sort, and began to doubt my progress and my voice and even my right to
post something so ugly. And so here it
sat as a draft for well over three months, as I continued to dance on the line
of Walking to the Light/Crouching in my Hole.
You know what? I’m so glad I didn’t post it then. Healing from deep-seated struggle is not a
linear journey. What I wrote that day
paints the picture of a hypnotee climbling out of a dark hole and mindlessly
ambling toward progress and light. That’s
not real. Real healing is the dance I
described above. You fall down again,
maybe even back into your hole, but you climb out a little more quickly each
time. You move toward the light, but
there are new obstacles along the way. It
takes stumble after stumble to really begin to grasp the progress you are
making.
I can’t even count how many times I’ve fallen since I wrote
this post all about how I was all done falling.
But in three days my Libby Joy will turn five years old and I will post
again, about how proud I am of how much she has overcome. And you, the Libby Joy Fan Club, can’t even
begin to fathom how far she has come until you know where we came from.
Five years old. Walking,
talking, and soaking up her ever-expanding world. That’s enough to make me cry light, bright,
happy tears.
