{"id":136,"date":"2009-08-13T07:36:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-13T07:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2009\/08\/expecto-natronus\/"},"modified":"2009-08-13T07:36:00","modified_gmt":"2009-08-13T07:36:00","slug":"expecto-natronus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/expecto-natronus\/","title":{"rendered":"Expecto Natronus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Expecto Patronus!<\/span>
–Harry Potter, defeating a Dementor<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems that the way I learn things is recursive, a spiral that moves upward but never remains forward and clear. Right now, however, my point in space is right up front, clear, and scintillating — in terms of Nat leaving for his camp on Sunday.<\/p>\n

In order to explain what I am talking about, I have to go backwards. Last night I was having one of my usual blasts of self-doubt; this time it was about how to get Nat to the airport and on the plane. The logistics alone are an entire blog post’s worth of space, because he’s going with a staff person from his House, and not one of us. He’s coming here Friday, but going back to the House so that he can then go to the airport on Sunday, the day camp will start.<\/p>\n

So I was thinking about what would be best: for me to go with him and his aide and help them check in and then I would leave for the Cape to celebrate my mother’s 70th birthday…? Or should I say good bye to him on Saturday when I bring him back to the House? Or should I drop them both off at the curb at the airport?<\/p>\n

These deceptively pragmatic concerns floated around like Dementors<\/a> above my bed, and suddenly the clammy soul-sucking fear was revealed: <\/p>\n

What If Something Terrible Happens…? How Can I Let Him …?<\/span><\/p>\n

I lay there, wanting to wake Ned up and go over this, but I knew I had to let him sleep. My mind drifted further back, to a conversation I’d had Tuesday night with a friend. She had been telling me about her 19-year-old daughter who was now in college and all of her own gut-wrenching fears and guilt around letting her daughter just go and make mistakes, etc.<\/p>\n

Usually when I hear these kinds of things, I find myself nodding but also thinking, “Yeah… but it’s different with Nat…” But suddenly, in the darkness, I had a vision of Max, graduating this summer from high school, and proposing a trip to — oh, I don’t know, Europe? California? The Andes? And how I would probably have to just let him go (provided he could afford it and we could discuss the plan). Also, though, how I would worry about every single thing he could possibly encounter, every disaster, every scary tragedy. The very same, utterly no different at all from how I am worried about Nat right now.<\/p>\n

I heard my friend’s voice saying, “Yeah, but we just have to let them! And I think that’s really the right thing!” But she was almost frantic saying it, so I could feel her honesty, her conflict, and it resonated with me.<\/p>\n

I would be just as worried about Max going off. Terror and tragedy around one child is exactly as terrible as around the other. Autism does not intensify the bad event. Bad is bad. And somehow knowing that, I relaxed! I had to let Nat go off to his camp without us on the plane or nearby, I had to let it happen. Horrors can always happen, but I don’t have to fixate on them. It is not a bad thing that I have planned this trip for him; it is actually a wonderful<\/span> thing!<\/p>\n

Exhale, close eyes, sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Expecto Patronus!–Harry Potter, defeating a Dementor It seems that the way I learn things is recursive, a spiral that moves upward but never remains forward and clear. Right now, however, my point in space is right up front, clear, and scintillating — in terms of Nat leaving for his camp on Sunday. In order to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-2c","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}