Sometimes I look at my boys and I think, \u201cThose are my eggs.\u201d\u00a0 I am full of wonder at what they once were, and how they evolved into who they are now.\u00a0 But what happened with the oldest one?<\/p>\n
A few weeks ago, we had Nat’s ITP, which is his Individualized Transition Planning meeting.\u00a0 Among other things, we were told by our Department of Developmental Services liaison that we should be seriously transitioning Nat away from Home weekends.\u00a0 Our liaison told us, very sensibly, that we need to do this in order to make the case that Nat needs residential support and cannot live at home after graduation.<\/p>\n
Nat can’t live with us.\u00a0 I can say that now, 21 years after Nat’s birth.\u00a0 When Nat first hatched, my fluffy yellow chick, he was so raw and vulnerable.\u00a0 I could not feel happy because I was so afraid for him.\u00a0 I did not believe I could leave him with anyone, not even Ned.\u00a0 I actually thought he might die if I did (when he was a week old, my first outing).\u00a0 Maybe all people feel that way with their firstborn, though.<\/p>\n
Nat can be without me now, for weeks at a time.\u00a0 And that\u2019s how it has to be.\u00a0 Nat can’t live at home.\u00a0 But this is not about how age appropriate it is for a young man to live away from his parents.\u00a0 If he lives at home, he regresses.\u00a0 He becomes a walking nerve ending, taut gangly ganglia.\u00a0 He goes through activities in a rote, rushed way.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if he enjoys anything when he\u2019s home, other than his social group.<\/p>\n
Which is age appropriate.\u00a0 I guess.\u00a0 But sometimes I have to admit I feel like I\u2019m stretching things.\u00a0 I worry that I\u2019m making stuff up.\u00a0 How do I really know for sure?<\/p>\n
But I always maintain that knowing Nat is part leap of faith, part optimism, part mystery, and part nuts and bolts fact.\u00a0 Today I am thinking of the mystery.\u00a0 I\u2019m not all that optimistic because I\u2019m sad that he\u2019s not with me today.\u00a0 I\u2019m in a coffee shop alone.\u00a0 I have all the time in the world.\u00a0 No one is gulping down a huge brownie and standing up, ready to lope back home.<\/p>\n
I have mixed feelings about those kinds of soothing arguments people make when I am heartbroken about one particular passage or another.\u00a0 When Nat first moved out, a lot of people rushed to say, “Well, he’s almost 18.\u00a0 He would be going to college at this point…”<\/p>\n
Yeah, don’t finish that sentence, thanks.\u00a0 I am not that together that I can just go with that, strong and smiling.\u00a0 The fact is, Nat is not going to college, it is not the same thing.\u00a0 Nat is going to be living in an apartment with other guys, like Max, but the guys won\u2019t be like Max.\u00a0 And Nat will have 24 hour oversight by another adult, someone who would know to call 911 at appropriate times and not open the door to random people.<\/p>\n
I sound crabby and I suppose I am.\u00a0 I missed Nat so much this weekend.\u00a0 But this was also one of the best weekends I\u2019ve had in a long time.\u00a0 I went to a party that was just perfect:\u00a0 enough people I knew, some I\u2019ve known forever, and also others I sort of knew, and still more I wanted to know.\u00a0 I was dressed right.\u00a0 There was dinner, dancing, heavily-frosted birthday cake.\u00a0 My handsome husband even danced with me.\u00a0 The only anxiety I had was whether Nat was having an okay time in the Residence.\u00a0 Was he sad without us?<\/p>\n
Will I always have this gentle pressure in my throat, my chest, Nat\u2019s presence inside me?\u00a0 A kind of peripheral pain \u2013 not even an ache, but a sigh.\u00a0 I think so.\u00a0 He is my son, but he is the son who will always need my help in order to survive.\u00a0 My other two sons already know how to keep themselves alive and even thriving \u2013 and one of them is only 13.\u00a0 Nat knows how to do many things, but he still doesn\u2019t know to do them.<\/p>\n
I feel like if I go on like this I run the danger of people feeling sorry for me.\u00a0 Or people telling me to stop feeling sorry for myself.\u00a0 But it is not myself I\u2019m sorry for.\u00a0 It\u2019s my darling, my not quite fully-cooked egg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometimes I look at my boys and I think, \u201cThose are my eggs.\u201d\u00a0 I am full of wonder at what they once were, and how they evolved into who they are now.\u00a0 But what happened with the oldest one? A few weeks ago, we had Nat’s ITP, which is his Individualized Transition Planning meeting.\u00a0 Among […]<\/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-1961","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-vD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961","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=1961"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1963,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961\/revisions\/1963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}