Outwit, Outlast, Outplay: Lessons Learned from this Month
Apparently toughness runs in my blood. My paternal grandmother and her family lived through some tough times in Belarus. Her family had survived World War I (most of them, my great grandmother buried two children on the side of the road as they fled from the Germans) and somehow made it through the Polish Soviet war afterward before emigrating to Canada in 1926. My maternal grandfather grew up on the Saskatchewan prairie—in the middle of nowhere—in a log homestead where in those winter months of -30C the ice would come through the joints in the wall and he’d have to sleep in every article of clothing he owned to keep from freezing during the Great Depression. His family relied on his ingenuity (as well as the ingenuity of his siblings) to make extra money and to keep everyone fed, clothed, and the household running. He later lied about his age so he could enlist in the Canadian Army during WWII to defend the country. There’s a lot of survivor grit in my family. And every day I’m counting on the possibility that I somehow inherited some of that.
Because being J’s mom requires survivor grit, and unfortunately, there’s never a day off. There is no forgiveness from deviating from the plan. If I let down my guard for a millisecond, J sees that and uses it to his advantage. Yes, sometimes our relationship is an all-out combat type of relationship. If we don’t practice reading comprehension for two weeks there’s hell to pay when we start it back up again. If we let up on piano practice for a few weeks it’s me v him, battle of the wills on the piano bench seeing who can sit long enough without relenting. If I stick with it long enough (at least 45 min) J will relent.
Outwit, Outlast, Outplay.
Most days I have no problems putting on a game face. Most of the time I can handle the stresses of having an autistic child—it’s not always a picnic, but I can do it. I get up every morning, put one foot forward, go through our routine and go to bed at the end of the day and wake up and do it again.
Sure, I’ll have those demoralizing moments of, “Well shoot. That just blew up in our face. What do we do next?” and sometimes there’s a few tears, but at the end of the day I really do like the challenge. I like to figure things out, research, research, research, (I love to read), and build new strategies. I love the fact that this experience lets me understand the human condition. I’m a writer. I thrive on that. But two or three times a year, I’ll have a meltdown–that full on cry-out where you’re body just shakes and your eyes are so puffy it’s hard to put in contacts the next morning. And there’s snot. Lots of snot: all over your face and the sleeves of your shirt. You just feel like you’ve sort of hit a wall.
A few weeks ago, I hit my threshold. I had one of those meltdowns.
It wasn’t J’s fault, really. This time it came down to burn out. Running on all cylinders, pushing an elephant up a mountain, running a marathon to find out that mile marker 19 was mismarked and you were only on mile 16. Pick your burnout metaphor.
These are the things I came out with after this triannual meltdown:
1) Know your sabre tooth tiger response. Mine is flight. Luckily I have a spouse who knows me well enough to know that’s my response and to be okay with it. It was Steve’s idea to fly me out to New Jersey to see a friend for 5 days so I could mentally regroup. I’m so glad I have such supportive friends on the other side. Hayley was more than happy to let me crash at her place for a while. I was really grateful, because sometimes I have to run away in order to come back feeling better. (My favorite thing Steve says to me right before I have to take a trip somewhere is, “Have fun! Remember to come back, right?”)
Hayley’s a good friend from grad school and it was so nice to not “do” anything and to talk writing and craft and MFA memories and publishing and to remember who I was again and what my plans for myself were and to NOT HAVE TO TALK ABOUT KIDS OR BE AROUND KIDS and just hang out with her! I needed to remember what I look like without J. Hayley took me to Princeton, probably the highlight of my trip, and I fantasized what it would be like to be a student again—a student there, just to sit in on lectures and listen and learn and LEARN. About everything. About writing. To sit in on a class taught by Joyce Carol Oates. Hayley and I joked about what our lives would be like to be a student there. Speculated what the party life would be like. I ate up the ivy league atmosphere, the trendy campus steeped in academic traditions. Because at the end of the day, I really do like challenges. I love learning new things. I think it’s in my DNA. I like to figure things out, research, research, research, (I love to read), and build new strategies. I love the fact that reading and studying lets me understand the human condition. I’m a writer. I thrive on that.
2) My two loves in life can sometimes be my mental/emotional downfall: being a mother and being a writer. There’s a lot of criticism and a lot of failure in both. It can take YEARS of your best efforts to be finished, sent of, and then rejected and rejected again. (Ugh! my Butterfly Endings manuscript is killing me. I’ve had to have sent that out to at least 30 journals by now, but all I’ve been getting lately is, “close, no cigar” type rejections). And you can never stop being either, which contributes to burnout. Obviously, with kids, you’re always on call, but as a writer, your mind is always turning too. I found this article online the other day that helped me figure out how to tame the creative burnout too:
3) Eliminate stupid stress: This comes in many forms. Sometimes it’s just saying “no” to something or someone. Maybe it’s giving yourself permission to give into a few guilty pleasures (like downtime where you do NOTHING–no reading up on autism, no reading, no nothing. Total veg on the couch). Maybe it’s putting down that manuscript you’ve been beating your head against the wall about (I have 2 short stories that have been driving me crazy). Maybe it means not watching baseball the only time of the year you actually care about baseball (because your Blue Jays are pitted against your husband’s Royals). I kept my emotional distance on this one this year. I checked the Jays’ score on my phone up until they were out. Once the Royals made the World Series I let Steve sweat it out by himself. Usually I’m a supportive wife but this year I just needed to leave the family room. I don’t need unnecessary stress when I’m already stressed out. Sure, it’s thrilling and fun. The Royals put on an incredible show (Steve did show me the highlights) but I can’t go weeks on end, in real time, stressing out on something that doesn’t matter at the end of the day (sorry Steve. I know. Sacrilege.). Got to keep the emotional reserves up. Got to pick my stress-out battles.
I’m always teaching J how to manage his thoughts, how to “train his brain” to not respond, act, react, or become anxious about something. At 35 I’m learning that sometimes I need to play games with my brain to keep it grounded and far from wandering off into crazy town and hanging out there too long.
Outwit, Outlast, Outplay.
Here’s to survival and sanity for everyone!
