I was thinking this morning why it is so easy for everyone …
.. who hasn’t experienced the shit you are in …
… to say, ‘Oh, can’t you just …’
It’s not just about having a child with a diagnosis like we do.
It’s not about people being deliberately mean or stupid. Not always.
I think it’s about armchairs.
You’ve heard the expression ‘armchair historian’ for sure? I know a few: ‘Why didn’t General This do That on the battlefield of So and So?’
Well, maybe he didn’t have the benefit of a nice cozy armchair to sit in and ponder his strategy. Maybe he was trying to coordinate the battle from a fucking tent being torn to pieces by shrapnel.
Some days it feels like that at home.
But the point is, it probably never feels like that for the armchair advisors for your family’s woes …
… whether it’s Mom in the villa my stepfather bought for her, doling out advice on my son’s feeding disorder per email
… some teacher who had a meeting with lots of time and coffee about the bullies who chase Emma home from school
… or an apparatchik in the RSA wondering why we haven’t just filled out the 17-page application form for Itsy Bitsy Support Program.
I mean, she was real busy at work today but still had time to read applications from so many lazy people like me and a thousand other things.
Good girl. Have a cookie.
She has an office chair.
It has the same effect on people’s minds as an armchair, I believe.
And you can’t juggle sitting in any of those chairs.
So you don’t know what it’s like driving your son to school, going home trying to wash clothes, apply for jobs, catch up on sleep … and then picking him up three hours later because he hasn’t eaten a crumb.
You don’t know what it’s like to
– shop, cook, and clean at the same time you have to
– talk your daughter down from running away
– and stop your autistic son from crying every two minutes, because he can’t get a new ritual just right, like lighting all white lamps in the right sequence, or …
All at the bloody same time.
And when you have a coffee break—and you have many, haven’t you, Miss RSA?—then you think about going right home and how good it will be to smooch with your husband tonight after a nice long bath and some gameshow on the flatscreen.
I think about how to prevent my marriage from falling apart and how to stop myself from yelling at Jon when he finally comes home from his shift, chasing bad guys and securing our borders.
But I can’t change all of these things. So I have to learn.
Not how to juggle. Nobody can juggle that much.
Not how to tell off all the armchair advisors. Some of them don’t give a shit, true. Others do, but they still don’t get what it really takes.
Because the first thing they think of is how they can feel better themselves by saying certain things about how life should be for me, or adhering to certain regulations. So I guess it comes down to the same, huh? No shit …
But I can’t fight this attitude, either.
I have to learn to ignore all the balls I drop on the floor. Every fucking day.
Just that.
It’s a very challenging battle to win.
But it’s the only one I have a hope of winning.
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CARRIE, February 2016
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Cover photo by Tuva Mathilde Løland on Unsplash
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Thanks for reading! Feel free to share your thoughts, comments or experiences!
Comments
5 responses to “The Battle You Have To Win”
Of course this has nothing to do with my own life … /s.
Anyway, I have two other very short stories (flash fiction) in the pipeline for this week. (I suppose the post you just read constitutes a socalled vignette, but never mind.)
What’s important is that I feel like writing shorter entries for a while. So expect more of that, and more often. I look forward to hearing what y’all think.
That’s it for now. I hope you like this one. I won’t do 1st person POV’s that often, I suspect, but I think it fits well into the format of telling these stories via a blog. Agree? Or not?
Stay well out there,
Chris
Your metaphor of need to get over all the balls on the floor spoke to me deeply, Christopher, and triggered a whole stream of thoughts that I previously was unable to put into words. Thanks and peace, man.
I can only imagine, Frank. But I’m grateful to hear that. Thanks for sharing. That means a lot.
I’ve lived what you describe for about 40 years and I got so tired of the unhelpful judgement, the unhelpful system, the unhelpful help, that I guess, I resorted to isolation and really that’s because I didn’t have time to maintain relationships. Wish I could tell you that it will get better but I can’t. I focus on faith and try to lift myself out of it and gain a perspective from above. Now I’m at the age that I just can’t do it anymore and am having to let go and let God. So very painful. Hang tough.
Thank you. There are good people who try, better than others, certainly. But it feels like the majority are almost always in the categories Carrie describe in her anger. Which, of course, is very similar to my own, when I can’t keep a lid on it (just ask my spouse).
The conclusion I have reached is much the same as yours, although of the people in my stories Carrie is still very agnostic. I plan to let her have some experiences that forces her to open more to the possibility that there might be something greater than herself out there that can help. That she doesn’t have to win the (inner or outer) battles on her own.
Thanks for commenting, and for your own wonderful blog.