It’s different.\u00a0 Of course it’s different.\u00a0 And here’s how:\u00a0 because I don’t know what he knows.\u00a0 I don’t know how he understands things, and that is a very unfair thing.\u00a0 And that is why I think I will always be a hovermother.<\/p>\n
We tried another House weekend this time.\u00a0 It was bad timing because the House staff did not have him call for several nights last week and I was out other times.\u00a0 I did not get to connect.\u00a0 I hate that.\u00a0 What does he think of that?\u00a0 Does he care?\u00a0 How far in does it go?\u00a0 Or is it like Max or something, he notices but he’s okay, because he’s Whole?<\/p>\n
No, I’m not feeling sorry for myself, and if I am, why the hell should that matter?\u00a0 Why are we all so set on being Strong?\u00a0 What is disgusting about being weak, or sad?\u00a0 Goddammit, I am so sad.\u00a0 I am supposed to be letting him get used to the Adult World (sorry for all the upper case, but that is how the words seem to me).\u00a0 This is not something I am being forced to do, so please don’t tell me that I don’t have to.\u00a0 If you do I will not print your comment.\u00a0 Do not tell me, because you don’t know.\u00a0 Ned and I are doing this.\u00a0 We are doing this.\u00a0 And I hate it.<\/p>\n
And just because it makes me sad doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen.\u00a0 But I am not like others who can tell themselves truths and then move on.\u00a0 I don’t know how they do that, how they convince their feelings to behave, to go away.\u00a0 I can’t.\u00a0 Mine just hang around, clinging to me, telling me what is real anyway.<\/p>\n
My sadness is real, and Nat’s adulthood is real.\u00a0 He is at the House, he doesn’t always get to call, and I don’t always get to call.\u00a0 My other sons live their own lives and sometimes it feels like Ned really does, too.\u00a0 And then it feels like I’m the only one living and thinking about Nat.<\/p>\n
In some ways, I wish I’d never let him go.\u00a0 Anywhere.\u00a0 Back when he was first diagnosed — “diagnosed” makes it sound like they determined that he was sick, but he was not, he was still Our Nat, but he now Had Something.\u00a0 Something he’d had along, but we didn’t know, and why did that have to matter?<\/p>\n
Sometimes I wonder, stupidly of course, why does a person have to go away?\u00a0 If he’s just not ready?\u00a0 What the fuck is Tough Love?\u00a0 That is an oxymoron.<\/p>\n
Back then, I was told, like I am today, that he had to go.\u00a0 He needed school, not his home all the time.\u00a0 It was home that was not doing for him what he needed.<\/p>\n
But home was me.\u00a0 And Nat at home was our reality.\u00a0 If I sent him to school, then didn’t it mean that reality had shifted, and he was what they were all saying he was?\u00a0 I still can’t help it, a part of me feels that They changed him, with their stupid diagnosis and their special education.\u00a0 They made it real by calling it a name.<\/p>\n
Shit, I’m sitting here writing and crying.\u00a0 Really, really quietly, pretending I have a sniffle.\u00a0 Max is right next to me, working on something on his laptop.\u00a0 Does he know I’m crying?\u00a0 Is it just “Oh, there goes Mom again with a mood swing.”\u00a0 Or what?\u00a0 I don’t even know what his reality is, but you know, I really do know enough what it is, because there is feedback I can understand.<\/p>\n
Why do Nat and I have to speak a different language?\u00a0 Why is mine so word-heavy and his so much movement and silence?<\/p>\n
So we all decide it is time for him to start dealing with change because 22 looms large and ugly.\u00a0 There is no clawing it back to what it was, no matter how much I pull at it.\u00a0 Just like school, it is just ripped away from me.\u00a0 But I don’t heal.<\/p>\n
I’m going there today to take him out for ice cream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s different.\u00a0 Of course it’s different.\u00a0 And here’s how:\u00a0 because I don’t know what he knows.\u00a0 I don’t know how he understands things, and that is a very unfair thing.\u00a0 And that is why I think I will always be a hovermother. We tried another House weekend this time.\u00a0 It was bad timing because the […]<\/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-2024","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-wE","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2024","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=2024"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2028,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2024\/revisions\/2028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}